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HISTOKICAL ESSAYS 



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HISTORICAL ESSAYS 



BY 

JAMES FORD RHODES, LL.D., D.Litt. 

AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FROM THE 

COMPROMISE OF 1850 TO THE FINAL RESTORATION OF 

HOME RULE AT THE SOUTH IN 1877 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1909 

All rights reserved 






COPTBIOHT, 1909, 

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Set up and electrotyped. Published December, igog. 



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PREFACE 

In offering to the public this volume of Essays, all but 
two of which have been read at various places on different 
occasions, I am aware that there is some repetition in ideas 
and illustrations, but, as the dates of their delivery and 
previous publication are indicated, I am letting them stand 
substantially as they were written and delivered. 

I am indebted to my son, Daniel P. Rhodes, for a lit- 
erary revision of these Essays; and I have to thank the 
editors of the Atlantic Monthly, of Scrihner^s Magazine, 
and of the Century Magazine for leave to reprint the arti- 
cles which have already appeared in their periodicals. 

Boston, November, 1909. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. History . . . 1 

President's Inaugural Address, American Historical Associa- 
tion, Boston, December 27, 1899 ; printed in the Atlantic 
Monthly of February, 1900. 

II. Concerning the Writing of History ... 25 
Address delivered at the Meeting of the American Historical 
Association in Detroit, December, 1900. 

III. The Profession of Historian 47 

Lecture read before the History Club of Harvard University, 
April 27, 1908, and at Yale, Columbia, and "Western Reserve 
Universities. 

IV. Newspapers as Historical Sources ... 81 

A Paper read before the American Historical Association in 
Washington on December 29, 1908 ; printed in the Atlantic 
Monthly of May, 1909. 

V. Speech prepared for the Commencement Dinner 
at Harvard University, June 26, 1901. (Not 
delivered) 99 

VI. Edward Gibbon 105 

Lecture read at Harvard University, April 6, 1908, and printed 
in Scribner's Magazine of June, 1909. 

VII. Samuel Rawson Gardiner 141 

A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at 
the March Meeting of 1902, and printed in the Atlantic 
Monthly of May, 1902. 

VIIL William E. H. Lecky 151 

A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at 
the November Meeting of 1903. 

IX. Sir Spencer Walpole 159 

A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at 
the November Meeting of 1907. 
vii 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

X. John Richard Green 169 

Address at a Gathering of Historians on June 5, 1909, to 
marli the Placing of a Tablet in the Inner Quadrangle of 
Jesus College, Oxford, to the Memory of John Richard 
Green. 

XI. Edward L. Pierce 175 

A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society 
at the October Meeting of 1897. 

XII. Jacob D. Cox 183 

A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society 
/' at the October Meeting of 1900. 

XIII. Edward Gaylord Bourne 189 

A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society 
at the March Meeting of 1908. 

XIV. The Presidential Office 201 

An Essay printed in Scribner^s Magazine of February, 190.3, 
XV. A Review of President Hayes's Administration 243 

Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Graduate ) 

School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, on Octo- 
ber 8, 1908 ; printed in the Century Magazine for October, 
1909. 

XVI. Edwin Lawrence Godkin 265 

Lecture read at Harvard University, April 13, 1908 ; printed 
in the Atlantic Monthly for September, 1908. 

XVII. Who burned Columbia? 299 

A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society 
at the November Meeting of 1901, and printed in the 
American Historical Bevieio of April, 1902. 

XVIII. A New Estimate of Cromwell .... 315 
A Paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society 
at the January Meeting of 1898, and printed in the Atlantic 
Monthly of June, 1898. 

Index 325 



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HISTORY 

President's Inaugural Address, American Historical Association, 
Boston, December 27, 1899 ; printed in the Atlantic Monthly of 
February, 1900. 



\ 



HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

HISTORY ' 

My theme is history. It is an old subject, which has 
been discoursed about since Herodotus, and I should be 
vain indeed if I flattered myself that I could say aught 
new concerning the methods of writing it, when this has 
for so long a period engaged the minds of so many gifted 
men. Yet to a sympathetic audience, to people who love 
history, there is always the chance that a fresh treatment 
may present the commonplaces in some different combina- 
tion, and augment for the moment an interest which is 
perennial. 

Holding a brief for history as do I your representative, 
let me at once concede that it is not the highest form of 
intellectual endeavor; let us at once agree that it were 
better that all the histories ever written were burned than 
for the world to lose Homer and Shakespeare. Yet as it 
is generally true that an advocate rarely admits anything 
without qualification, I should not be loyal to my client 
did I not urge that Shakespeare was historian as well as 
poet. We all prefer his Antony and Cleopatra and Julius 
Csesar to the Lives in North's Plutarch which furnished 
him his materials. The history is in substance as true as 
Plutarch, the dramatic force greater; the language is bet- 
ter than that of Sir Thomas North, who himself did a 
remarkable piece of work when he gave his country a 

' President's Inaugural Address, American Historical Association, Boston, 
December 27, 1899; printed in the Atlantic Monthly of February, 1900. 

B 1 



2 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

classic by Englishing a French version of the stories of the 
Greek. It is true as Macaulay wrote, the historical plays 
of Shakespeare have superseded history. When we think 
of Henry V. it is of Prince Hal, the boon companion of 
Falstaff, who spent his youth in brawl and riot, and then 
became a sober and duty-loving king; and our idea of 
Richard IH. is a deceitful, dissembling, cruel wretch who 
knew no touch of pity, a bloody tyrant who knew no law 
of God or man. 

The Achilles of Homer was a very living personage to 
Alexander. How happy he was, said the great general, 
when he visited Troy, '4n having while he lived so faithful 
a friend, and when he was dead so famous a poet to pro- 
claim his actions" ! In our century, as more in conso- 
nance with society under the regime of contract, when 
force has largely given way to craft, we feel in greater 
sympathy with Ulysses. ''The one person I would Hke 
to have met and talked with," Froude used to say, ''was 
Ulysses. How interesting it would be to have his opinion 
on universal suffrage, and on a House of Parliament where 
Thersites is listened to as patiently as the king of men !" 

We may also concede that, in the realm of intellectual 
endeavor, the natural and physical sciences should have 
the precedence of history. The present is more important 
than the past, and those sciences which contribute to our 
comfort, place within the reach of the laborer and me- 
chanic as common necessaries what would have been the 
highest luxury to the Roman emperor or to the king of 
the Middle Ages, contribute to health and the preservation 
of life, and by the development of railroads make possible 
such a gathering as this, — these sciences, we cheerfully 
admit, outrank our modest enterprise, which, in the words 
of Herodotus, is "to preserve from decay the remembrance 



HISTORY 3 

of what men have done." It may be true, as a geologist 
once said, in extolling his study at the expense of the 
humanities, ''Rocks do not lie, although men do;" yet, on 
the other hand, the historic sense, which during our cen- 
tury has diffused itself widely, has invaded the domain of 
physical science. If you are unfortunate enough to be ill, 
and consult a doctor, he expatiates on the history of your 
disease. It was once my duty to attend the Commence- 
ment exercises of a technical school, when one of the grad- 
uates had a thesis on bridges. As he began by telling 
how they were built in Julius Caesar's time, and tracing 
at some length the development of the art during the 
period of the material prosperity of the Roman Empire, he 
had little time and space left to consider their construc- 
tion at the present day. One of the most brilliant sur- 
geons I ever knew, the originator of a number of important 
surgical methods, who, being physician as well, was re- 
markable in his expedients for saving life when called to 
counsel in grave and apparently hopeless cases, desired to 
write a book embodying his discoveries and devices, but 
said that the feeling was strong within him that he must 
begin his work with an account of medicine in Egypt, and 
trace its development down to our own time. As he was 
a busy man in his profession, he lacked the leisure to make 
the preliminary historical study, and his book was never 
written. Men of affairs, who, taking ''the present time 
by the top," are looked upon as devoted to the physical 
and mechanical sciences, continually pay tribute to our art. 
President Garfield, on his deathbed, asked one of his most 
trusted Cabinet advisers, in words that become pathetic as 
one thinks of the opportunities destroyed by the assassin's 
bullet, "Shall I live in history?" A clever politician, who 
knew more of ward meetings, caucuses, and the machinery 



4 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

of conventions than he did of history books, and who was 
earnest for the renomination of President Arthur in 1884, 
said to me, in the way of cHnching his argument, ''That 
administration will live in history." So it was, according 
to Amyot, in the olden time. ''Whensoever," he wrote, 
"the right sage and virtuous Emperor of Rome, Alexander 
Severus, was to consult of any matter of great importance, 
whether it concerned war or government, he always called 
such to counsel as were reported to be well seen in histories." 
"What, " demanded Cicero of Attic us, "will history say of me 
six hundred years hence ? " 

Proper concessions being made to poetry and the physical 
sciences, our place in the field remains secure. Moreover, 
we live in a fortunate age ; for was there ever so propitious a 
time for writing history as in the last forty years? There 
has been a general acquisition of the historic sense. The 
methods of teaching history have so improved that they may 
be called scientific. Even as the chemist and physicist, we 
talk of practice in the laboratory. Most biologists will accept 
Haeckel's designation of "the last forty years as the age of 
Darwin," for the theory of evolution is firmly established. 
The publication of the Origin of Species, in 1859, converted 
it from a poet's dream and philosopher's speculation to a 
well-demonstrated scientific theory. Evolution, heredity, 
environment, have become household words, and their 
application to history has influenced every one who has 
had to trace the development of a people, the growth of an 
institution, or the establishment of a cause. Other scientific 
theories and methods have affected physical science as 
potently, but none has entered so vitally into the study of 
man. What hitherto the eye of genius alone could per- 
ceive may become the common property of every one who 
cares to read a dozen books. But with all of our advantages, 



HISTORY 5 

do we write better history than was written before the year 
1859, which we may call the line of demarcation between the 
old and the new? If the English, German, and American 
historical scholars should vote as to who were the two best 
historians, I have little doubt that Thucydides and Tacitus 
would have a pretty large majority. If they were asked 
to name a third choice, it would undoubtedly lie between 
Herodotus and Gibbon. At the meeting of this association 
in Cleveland, when methods of historical teaching were under 
discussion, Herodotus and Thucydides, but no others, were 
mentioned as proper object lessons. What are the merits 
of Herodotus? Accuracy in details, as we understand it, 
was certainly not one of them. Neither does he sift critically 
his facts, but intimates that he will not make a positive 
decision in the case of conflicting testimony. "For myself," 
he wrote, ''my duty is to report all that is said, but I am not 
obliged to believe it all alike, — a remark which may be 
understood to apply to my whole history." He had none of 
the wholesome skepticism which we deem necessary in the 
weighing of historical evidence; on the contrary, he is 
frequently accused of credulity. Nevertheless, Percy Gard- 
ner calls his narrative nobler than that of Thucydides, and 
Mahaffy terms it an ''incomparable history." "The truth 
is," wrote Macaulay in his diary, when he was forty-nine 
years old, "I admire no historians much except Herodotus, 
Thucydides, and Tacitus." Sir M. E. Grant Duff devoted 
his presidential address of 1895, before the Royal Historical 
Society, wholly to Herodotus, ending with the conclusion, 
"The fame of Herodotus, which has a little waned, will 
surely wax again." Whereupon the London Times devoted 
a leader to the subject. "We are concerned," it said, "to 
hear, on authority so eminent, that one of the most delightful 
writers of antiquity has a little waned of late in favor with the 



6 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

world. If this indeed be the case, so much the worse for 
the world. . . . When Homer and Dante and Shakespeare 
are neglected, then will Herodotus cease to be read." 

There we have the secret of his hold upon the minds of 
men. He knows how to tell a story, said Professor Hart, 
in the discussion previously referred to, in Cleveland. He 
has ''an epic unity of plan," writes Professor Jebb. Herodo- 
tus has furnished delight to all generations, while Polybius, 
more accurate and painstaking, a learned historian and a 
practical statesman, gathers dust on the shelf or is read as a 
penance. Nevertheless, it may be demonstrated from the 
historical literature of England of our century that literary 
style and great power of narration alone will not give a man 
a niche in the temple of history. Herodotus showed dili- 
gence and honesty, without which his other qualities would 
have failed to secure him the place he holds in the estimation 
of historical scholars. 

From Herodotus we naturally turn to Thucydides, who in 
the beginning charms historical students by his impression 
of the seriousness and dignity of his business. History, he 
writes, will be ''found profitable by those who desire an 
exact knowledge of the past as a key to the future, which in 
all human probability will repeat or resemble the past. My 
history is an everlasting possession, not a prize composition 
which is heard and forgotten." Diligence, accuracy, love 
of truth, and impartiality are merits commonly ascribed to 
Thucydides, and the internal evidence of the history bears 
out fully the general opinion. But, in my judgment, there 
is a tendency to rate, in the comparative estimates, the 
Athenian too high, for the possession of these qualities ; for 
certainly some modern writers have possessed all of these 
merits in an eminent degree. When Jowett wrote in the pref- 
ace to his translation, Thucydides "stands absolutely alone 



HISTORY 7 

among the historians, not only of Hellas, but of the world, in 
his impartiality and love of truth," he was unaware that a 
son of his own university was writing the history of a momen- 
tous period of his own country, in a manner to impugn the 
correctness of that statement. When the Jowett Thucydides 
appeared, Samuel R. Gardiner had published eight volumes 
of his history, though he had not reached the great Civil War, 
and his reputation, which has since grown with a cumulative 
force, was not fully established ; but I have now no hesitation 
in saying that the internal evidence demonstrates that in 
impartiality and love of truth Gardiner is the peer of Thu- 
cydides. From the point of view of external evidence, the 
ease is even stronger for Gardiner; he submits to a harder 
test. That he has been able to treat so stormy, so contro- 
verted, and so well known a period as the seventeenth 
century in England, with hardly a question of his im- 
partiality, is a wonderful tribute. In fact, in an excellent 
review of his work I have seen him criticised for being too 
impartial. On the other hand, Grote thinks that he has 
found Thucydides in error, — in the long dialogue between 
the Athenian representatives and the Melians. '^This dia- 
logue," Grote writes, ''can hardly represent what actually 
passed, except as to a few general points which the historian 
has followed out into deductions and illustrations, thus 
dramatizing the given situation in a powerful and character- 
istic manner." Those very words might characterize Shake- 
speare's account of the assassination of Julius Caesar, and his 
reproduction of the speeches of Brutus and Mark Antony. 
Compare the relation in Plutarch with the third act of the 
tragedy, and see how, in his amplification of the story, Shake- 
speare has remained true to the essential facts of the time. 
Plutarch gives no account of the speeches of Brutus and 
Mark Antony, confining himself to an allusion to the one, 



8 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

and a reference to the other ; but Appian of Alexandria, in 
his history, has reported them. The speeches in Appian 
lack the force which they have in Shakespeare, nor do they 
seemingly fit into the situation as well. I have adverted 
to this criticism of Grote, not that I love Thucydides less, 
but that I love Shakespeare more. For my part, the histo- 
rian's candid acknowledgment in the beginning has con- 
vinced me of the essential — not the literal — truth of his 
accounts of speeches and dialogues. ''As to the speeches," 
wrote the Athenian, ''which were made either before or 
during the war, it was hard for me, and for others who 
reported them to me, to recollect the exact words. I have 
therefore put into the mouth of each speaker the sentiments 
proper to the occasion, expressed as I thought he would be 
likely to express them ; while at the same time I endeavored, 
as nearly as I could, to give the general purport of what 
was actually said." That is the very essence of candor. 
But be the historian as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, he 
shall not escape calumny. Mahaffy declares that, "although 
all modern historians quote Thucydides with more confidence 
than they would quote the Gospels," the Athenian has 
exaggerated; he is one-sided, partial, misleading, dry, and 
surly. Other critics agree with Mahaffy that he has been 
unjust to Cleon, and has screened Nicias from blame that was 
his due for defective generalship. 

We approach Tacitus with respect. We rise from reading 
his Annals, his History, and his Germany with reverence. 
We know that we have been in the society of a gentleman 
who had a high standard of morality and honor. We feel 
that our guide was a serious student, a solid thinker, and a 
man of the world; that he expressed his opinions and de- 
livered his judgments with a remarkable freedom from 
prejudice. He draws us to him with sympathy. He 



HISTORY 9 

sounds the same mournful note which we detect in Thucyd- 
ides. Tacitus deplores the folly and dissoluteness of the 
rulers of his nation ; he bewails the misfortunes of his country. 
The merits we ascribe to Thucydides, diligence, accuracy, 
love of truth, impartiality, are his. The desire to quote 
from Tacitus is irresistible. ''The more I meditate," he 
writes, ''on the events of ancient and modern times, the more 
I am struck with the capricious uncertainty which mocks 
the calculations of men in all their transactions." Again : 
"Possibly there is in all things a kind of cycle, and there may 
be moral revolutions just as there are changes of seasons." 
"Commonplaces!" sneer the scientific historians. True 
enough, but they might not have been commonplaces if 
Tacitus had not uttered them, and his works had not been 
read and re-read until they have become a common possession 
of historical students. From a thinker who deemed the time 
"out of joint," as Tacitus obviously did, and who, had he not 
possessed great strength of mind and character, might 
have lapsed into a gloomy pessimism, what noble words are 
these : "This I regard as history's highest function : to let no 
worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the 
reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds." 
The modesty of the Roman is fascinating. "Much of what 
I have related," he says, "and shall have to relate, may 
perhaps, I am aware, seem petty trifles to record. . . . My 
labors are circumscribed and unproductive of renown to 
the author." How agreeable to place in contrast with this 
the prophecy of his friend, the younger Pliny, in a letter to 
the historian : "I augur — nor does my augury deceive me — 
that your histories will be immortal : hence all the more do 
I desire to find a place in them." 

To my mind, one of the most charming things in historical 
literature is the praise which one great historian bestows 



10 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

upon another. Gibbon speaks of ''the discerning eye" 
and ''masterly pencil of Tacitus, — the first of historians 
who applied the science of philosophy to the study of facts," 
"whose writings will instruct the last generations of man- 
kind." He has produced an immortal work, "every sentence 
of which is pregnant with the deepest observations and 
most lively images." I mention Gibbon, for it is more than 
a strong probability that in diligence, accuracy, and love of 
truth he is the equal of Tacitus. A common edition of the 
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is 
that with notes by Dean Milman, Guizot, and Dr. Smith. 
Niebuhr, Villemain, and Sir James Mackintosh are each 
drawn upon for criticism. Did ever such a fierce light beat 
upon a history? With what keen relish do the annotators 
pounce upon mistakes or inaccuracies, and in that portion of 
the work which ends with the fall of the Western Empire 
how few do they find ! Would Tacitus stand the supreme 
test better? There is, so far as I know, only one case in 
which we may compare his Annals with an original record. 
On bronze tablets found at Lyons in the sixteenth century 
is engraved the same speech made by the Emperor Claudius 
to the Senate that Tacitus reports. "Tacitus and the tab- 
lets," writes Professor Jebb, "disagree hopelessly in lan- 
guage and in nearly all the detail, but agree in the general 
line of argument." Gibbon's work has richly deserved its 
life of more than one hundred years, a period which I believe 
no other modern history has endured. Niebuhr, in a course 
of lectures at Bonn, in 1829, said that Gibbon's "work will 
never be excelled." At the Gibbon Centenary Commemora- 
tion in London, in 1894, many distinguished men, among 
whom the Church had a distinct representation, gathered 
together to pay honor to him who, in the words of Frederic 
Harrison, had written "the most perfect book that Eng- 



HISTORY 11 

lish prose (outside its fiction) possesses." Mommsen, pre- 
vented by age and work from being present, sent his tribute. 
No one, he said, would in the future be able to read the his- 
tory of the Roman Empire unless he read Edward Gibbon. 
The Times, in a leader devoted to the subject, apparently 
expressed the general voice: "^Back to Gibbon' is already, 
both here and among the scholars of Germany and France, 
the watchword of the younger historians." 

I have now set forth certain general propositions which, 
with time for adducing the evidence in detail, might, I 
think, be established : that, in the consensus of learned 
people, Thucydides and Tacitus stand at the head of histo- 
rians ; and that it is not alone their accuracy, love of truth, 
and impartiality which entitle them to this preeminence 
since Gibbon and Gardiner among the moderns possess 
equally the same qualities. What is it, then, that makes 
these men supreme? In venturing a solution of this ques- 
tion, I confine myself necessarily to the English translations 
of the Greek and Latin authors. We have thus a common 
denominator of language, and need not take into account 
the unrivaled precision and terseness of the Greek and the 
force and clearness of the Latin. It seems to me that one 
special merit of Thucydides and Tacitus is their compressed 
narrative, — that they have related so many events and put 
so much meaning in so few words. Our manner of writing 
history is really curious. The histories which cover long 
periods of time are brief; those which have to do with but 
a few years are long. The works of Thucydides and Tacitus 
are not like our compendiums of history, which merely touch 
on great affairs, since want of space precludes any elaboration. 
Tacitus treats of a comparatively short epoch, Thucydides 
of a much shorter one : both histories are brief. Thucydi- 
des and Macaulay are examples of extremes. The Athe- 



12 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

nian tells the story of twenty-four years in one volume; 
the Englishman takes nearly five volumes of equal size for 
his account of seventeen years. But it is safe to say that 
Thucydides tells us as much that is worth knowing as 
Macaulay. One is concise, the other is not. It is impossible 
to paraphrase the fine parts of Thucydides, but Macaulay 
lends himself readily to such an exercise. The thought of 
the Athenian is so close that he has got rid of all redundancies 
of expression: hence the effort to reproduce his ideas in 
other words fails. The account of the plague in Athens 
has been studied and imitated, and every imitation falls 
short of the original not only in vividness but in brevity. 
It is the triumph of art that in this and in other splendid 
portions we wish more had been told. As the French say, 
''the secret of wearying is to say all," and this the Athenian 
thoroughly understood. Between our compendiums, which 
tell too little, and our long general histories, which tell too 
much, are Thucydides and Tacitus. 

Again, it is a common opinion that our condensed histo- 
ries lack life and movement. This is due in part to their 
being written generally from a study of second-hand — 
not original — materials. Those of the Athenian and the 
Roman are mainly the original. 

I do not think, however, that we may infer that we have 
a much greater mass of materials, and thereby excuse our 
modern prolixity. In written documents, of course, we ex- 
ceed the ancients, for we have been flooded with these by 
the art of printing. Yet any one who has investigated any 
period knows how the same facts are told over and over 
again, in different ways, by various writers ; and if one can 
get beyond the mass of verbiage and down to the really 
significant original material, what a simplification of ideas 
there is, what a lightening of the load ! I own that this 



HISTORY 13 

process of reduction is painful, and thereby our work is made 
more difficult than that of the ancients. A historian will 
adapt himself naturally to the age in which he lives, and 
Thucydides made use of the matter that was at his hand. 
''Of the events of the war," he wrote, "I have not ventured 
to speak from any chance information, nor according to any 
notion of my own; I have described nothing but what I 
either saw myself, or learned from others of whom I made 
the most careful and particular inquiry. The task was a 
laborious one, because eye-witnesses of the same occurrences 
gave different accounts of them, as they remembered or 
were interested in the actions of one side or the other." His 
materials, then, were what he saw and heard. His books 
and his manuscripts were living men. Our distinguished 
military historian, John C. Ropes, whose untimely death we 
deplore, might have written his history from the same sort 
of materials ; for he was contemporary with our Civil War, 
and followed the daily events with intense interest. A 
brother of his was killed at Gettysburg, and he had many 
friends in the army. He paid at least one memorable visit 
to Meade's headquarters in the field, and at the end of the 
war had a mass of memories and impressions of the great 
conflict. He never ceased his inquiries; he never lost a 
chance to get a particular account from those who took 
part in battles or campaigns ; and before he began his Story 
of the Civil War, he too could have said, ''I made the most 
careful and particular inquiry" of generals and officers on 
both sides, and of men in civil office privy to the great 
transactions. His knowledge drawn from living lips was 
marvelous, and his conversation, when he poured this knowl- 
edge forth, often took the form of a flowing narrative in an 
animated style. While there are not, so far as I remember, 
any direct references in his two volumes to these memories, 



14 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

or to memoranda of conversations which he had with living 
actors after the close of the war drama, and while his main 
authority is the Official Records of the Union and Confeder- 
ate Armies, — which, no one appreciated better than he, 
were unique historical materials, — nevertheless this per- 
sonal knowledge trained his judgment and gave color to 
his narrative. 

It is pretty clear that Thucydides spent a large part of a 
life of about threescore years and ten in gathering materials 
and writing his history. The mass of facts which he set 
down or stored away in his memory must have been enor- 
mous. He was a man of business, and had a home in 
Thrace as well as in Athens, traveling probably at fairly 
frequent intervals between the two places; but the main 
portion of the first forty years of his life was undoubtedly 
spent in Athens, where, during those glorious years of peace 
and the process of beautifying the city, he received the best 
education a man could get. To walk about the city and 
view the buildings and statues was both directly and in- 
sensibly a refining influence. As Thucydides himself, in 
the funeral oration of Pericles, said of the works which the 
Athenian saw around him, ''the daily delight of them 
banishes gloom." There was the opportunity to talk with as 
good conversers as the world has ever known; and he un- 
doubtedly saw much of the men who were making history. 
There was the great theater and the sublime poetry. In a 
word, the life of Thucydides was adapted to the gathering of 
a mass of historical materials of the best sort; and his daily 
walk, his reading, his intense thought, gave him an intel- 
lectual grasp of the facts he has so ably handled. Of course 
he was a genius, and he wrote in an effective literary style ; 
but seemingly his natural parts and acquired talents are 
directed to this : a digestion of his materials, and a com- 



HISTORY 15 

pression of his narrative without taking the vigor out of his 
story in a manner I believe to be without parallel. He 
devoted a life to writing a volume. His years after the 
peace was broken, his career as a general, his banishment 
and enforced residence in Thrace, his visit to the countries 
of the Peloponnesian allies with whom Athens was at war, — 
all these gave him a signal opportunity to gather materials, 
and to assimilate them in the gathering. We may fancy 
him looking at an alleged fact on all sides, and turning it over 
and over in his mind ; we know that he must have meditated 
long on ideas, opinions, and events ; and the result is a brief, 
pithy narrative. Tradition hath it that Demosthenes copied 
out this history eight times, or even learned it by heart. 
Chatham, urging the removal of the forces from Boston, had 
reason to refer to the history of Greece, and, that he might 
impress it upon the lords that he knew whereof he spoke, 
declared, ''I have read Thucydides." 

Of Tacitus likewise is conciseness a well-known merit. 
Living in an age of books and libraries, he drew more from 
the written word than did Thucydides; and his method of 
working, therefore, resembled more our own. These are com- 
mon expressions of his : ''It is related by most of the writers 
of those times;" I adopt the account '4n which the authors 
are agreed;" this account ''agrees with those of the other 
writers." Relating a case of recklessness of vice in Messalina, 
he acknowledges that it will appear fabulous, and asserts 
his truthfulness thus : "But I would not dress up my narra- 
tive with fictions, to give it an air of marvel, rather than 
relate what has been stated to me or written by my seniors." 
He also speaks of the authority of tradition, and tells what he 
remembers "to have heard from aged men." He will not 
paraphrase the eloquence of Seneca after he had his veins 
opened, because the very words of the philosopher had been 



16 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

published ; but when, a little later, Flavius the tribune came 
to die, the historian gives this report of his defiance of Nero. 
''I hated you," the tribune said to the emperor; ''nor had 
you a soldier more true to you while you deserved to be loved. 
I began to hate you from the time you showed yourself 
the impious murderer of your mother and your wife, a 
charioteer, a stage-player, an incendiary." ''I have given 
the very words," Tacitus adds, ''because they were not, 
like those of Seneca, published, though the rough and vig- 
orous sentiments of a soldier ought to be no less known." 
Everywhere we see in Tacitus, as in Thucydides, a dislike of 
superfluous detail, a closeness of thought, a compression of 
language. He was likewise a man of affairs, but his life 
work was his historical writings, which, had we all of them, 
would fill probably four moderate-sized octavo volumes. 

To sum up, then: Thucydides and Tacitus are superior 
to the historians who have written in our century, because, 
by long reflection and studious method, they have better 
digested their materials and compressed their narrative. 
Unity in narration has been adhered to more rigidly. They 
stick closer to their subject. They are not allured into the 
fascinating bypaths of narration, which are so tempting to 
men who have accumulated a mass of facts, incidents, and 
opinions. One reason why Macaulay is so prolix is because 
he could not resist the temptation to treat events which had 
a picturesque side and which were suited to his literary 
style; so that, as John Morley says, "in many portions of 
his too elaborated history of William III. he describes a 
large number of events about which, I think, no sensible man 
can in the least care either how they happened, or whether 
indeed they happened at all or not." If I am right in my 
supposition that Thucydides and Tacitus had a mass of 
materials, they showed reserve and discretion in throwing a 



HISTORY 17 

large part of them away, as not being necessary or important 
to the posterity for which they were writing. This could 
only be the result of a careful comparison of their materials, 
and of long meditation on their relative value. I suspect 
that they cared little whether a set daily task was accom- 
plished or not; for if you propose to write only one large 
volume or four moderate-sized volumes in a lifetime, art is 
not too long nor is life too short. 

Another superiority of the classical historians, as I reckon, 
arose from the fact that they wrote what was practically 
contemporaneous history. Herodotus was born 484 B.C., 
and the most important and accurate part of his history is 
the account of the Persian invasion which took place four 
years later. The case of Thucydides is more remarkable. 
Born in 471 B.C., he relates the events which happened 
between 435 and 411, when he was between the ages of 
thirty-six and sixty. Tacitus, born in 52 a.d., covered 
with his Annals and History the years between 14 and 96. 
''Herodotus and Thucydides belong to an age in which the 
historian draws from life and for life," writes Professor Jebb. 
It is manifestly easier to describe a life you know than one 
you must imagine, which is what you must do if you aim to 
relate events which took place before your own and your 
father's time. In many treatises which have been written 
demanding an extraordinary equipment for the historian, it 
is generally insisted that he shall have a fine constructive 
imagination; for how can he re-create his historic period 
unless he live in it ? In the same treatises it is asserted that 
contemporary history cannot be written correctly, for im- 
partiality in the treatment of events near at hand is im- 
possible. Therefore the canon requires the quality of a 
great poet, and denies that there may be had the merit of a 
judge in a country where there are no great poets, but where 



18 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

candid judges abound. Does not the common rating of 
Thucydides and Tacitus refute the dictum that history witliin 
the memory of men living cannot be written truthfully and 
fairly? Given, then, the judicial mind, how much easier to 
write it ! The rare quality of a poet's imagination is no 
longer necessary, for your boyhood recollections, your 
youthful experiences, your successes and failures of man- 
hood, the grandfather's tales, the parent's recollections, 
the conversation in society, — all these put you in vital 
touch with the life you seek to describe. These not only 
give color and freshness to the vivifying of the facts you 
must find in the record, but they are in a way materials 
themselves, not strictly authentic, but of the kind that direct 
you in search and verification. Not only is no extraordinary 
ability required to write contemporary history, but the labor 
of the historian is lightened, and Dryasdust is no longer his 
sole guide. The funeral oration of Pericles is pretty nearly 
what was actually spoken, or else it is the substance of the 
speech written out in the historian's own words. Its in- 
tensity of feeling and the fitting of it so well into the situation 
indicate it to be a living contemporaneous document, and at 
the same time it has that universal application which we 
note in so many speeches of Shakespeare. A few years after 
our Civil War, a lawyer in a city of the middle West, who had 
been selected to deliver the Memorial Day oration, came 
to a friend of his in despair because he could write nothing 
but the commonplaces about those who had died for the 
Union and for the freedom of a race which had been uttered 
many times before, and he asked for advice. ''Take the 
funeral oration of Pericles for a model," was the reply. 
''Use his words where they will fit, and dress up the rest to 
suit our day." The orator was surprised to find how much 
of the oration could be used bodily, and how much, with 



HISTORY 19 

adaptation, was germane to his subject. But slight altera- 
tions are necessary to make the opening sentence this : 
''Most of those who have spoken here have commended the 
law-giver who added this oration to our other customs; 
it seemed to them a worthy thing that such an honor should 
be given to the dead who have fallen on the field of battle." 
In many places you may let the speech run on with hardly a 
change. ''In the face of death [these men] resolved to rely 
upon themselves alone. And when the moment came they 
were minded to resist and suffer rather than to fly and save 
their lives; they ran away from the word of dishonor, but 
on the battlefield their feet stood fast ; and while for a mo- 
ment they were in the hands of fortune, at the height, not of 
terror, but of glory, they passed away. Such was the end of 
these men ; they were worthy of their country." 

Consider for a moment, as the work of a contemporary, the 
book which continues the account of the Sicilian expedition, 
and ends with the disaster at Syracuse, "In the describing 
and reporting whereof," Plutarch writes, "Thucydides hath 
gone beyond himself, both for variety and liveliness of narra- 
tion, as also in choice and excellent words." "There is no 
prose composition in the world," wrote Macaulay, "which I 
place so high as the seventh book of Thucydides. ... I was 
delighted to find in Gray's letters, the other day, this query to 
Wharton : 'The retreat from Syracuse, — is it or is it not the 
finest thing you ever read in your life?'" In the Annals of 
Tacitus we have an account of part of the reign of Emperor 
Nero, which is intense in its interest as the picture of a state 
of society that would be incredible, did we not know that 
our guide was a truthful man. One rises from a perusal of 
this with the trite expression, "Truth is stranger than 
fiction;" and one need only compare the account of Tacitus 
with the romance of Quo Vadis to be convinced that true 



20 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

history is more interesting than a novel. One of the most 
vivid impressions I ever had came immediately after 
reading the story of Nero and Agrippina in Tacitus, from a 
view of the statue of Agrippina in the National Museum 
at Naples.* 

It will be worth our while now to sum up what I think 
may be established with sufficient time and care. Natural 
ability being presupposed, the qualities necessary for a 
historian are diligence, accuracy, love of truth, impartiality, 
the thorough digestion of his materials by careful selection 
and long meditating, and the compression of his narrative 
into the smallest compass consistent with the life of his story. 
He must also have a power of expression suitable for his 
purpose. All these qualities, we have seen, were possessed 
by Thucydides and Tacitus ; and we have seen furthermore 
that, by bringing to bear these endowments and acquire- 
ments upon contemporary history, their success has been 
greater than it would have been had they treated a more 
distant period. Applying these considerations to the writ- 
ing of history in America, it would seem that all we have 
to gain in method, in order that when the genius appears 
he shall rival the great Greek and the great Roman, is thor- 
ough assimilation of materials and rigorous conciseness 
in relation. I admit that the two things we lack are difficult 
to get as our own. In the collection of materials, in criticism 
and detailed analysis, in the study of cause and effect, in 
applying the principle of growth, of evolution, we certainly 
surpass the ancients. But if we live in the age of Darwin, 
we also live in an age of newspapers and magazines, when, 
as Lowell said, not only great events, but a vast ''number of 
trivial incidents, are now recorded, and this dust of time gets 

^ Since this essay was first printed I have seen the authenticity of 
this portrait statue questioned. 



HISTORY 21 

in our eyes " ; when distractions are manifold ; when the desire 
''to see one's name in print" and make books takes posses- 
sion of us all. If one has something like an original idea or 
a fresh combination of truisms, one obtains easily a hearing. 
The hearing once had, something of a success being made, the 
writer is urged by magazine editors and by publishers for 
more. The good side of this is apparent. It is certainly a 
wholesome indication that a demand exists for many serious 
books, but the evil is that one is pressed to publish his 
thoughts before he has them fully matured. The periods of 
fruitful meditation out of which emerged the works of 
Thucydides and Tacitus seem not to be a natural incident of 
our time. To change slightly the meaning of Lowell, ''the 
bustle of our lives keeps breaking the thread of that atten- 
tion which is the material of memory, till no one has patience 
to spin from it a continuous thread of thought." We have 
the defects of our qualities. Nevertheless, I am struck 
with the likeness between a common attribute of the Greeks 
and Matthew Arnold's characterization of the Americans. 
Greek thought, it is said, goes straight to the mark, and 
penetrates like an arrow. The Americans, Arnold wrote, 
"think straight and see clear." Greek life was adapted to 
meditation. American quickness and habit of taking the 
short cut to the goal make us averse to the patient and elabo- 
rate method of the ancients. In manner of expression, 
however, we have improved. The Fourth of July spread- 
eagle oration, not uncommon even in New England in former 
days, would now be listened to hardly anywhere without 
merriment. In a Lowell Institute lecture in 1855 Lowell 
said, "In modern times, the desire for startling expression 
is so strong that people hardly think a thought is good for 
anything unless it goes off with a pop, like a ginger-beer 
cork." No one would thus characterize our present writing. 



22 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Between reserve in expression and reserve in thought there 
must be interaction. We may hope, therefore, that the 
trend in the one will become the trend in the other, and that 
we may look for as great historians in the future as in the 
past. The Thucydides or Tacitus of the future will write 
his history from the original materials, knowing that there 
only will he find the living spirit ; but he will have the helps of 
the modern world. He will have at his hand monographs of 
students whom the professors of history in our colleges are 
teaching with diligence and wisdom, and he will accept these 
aids with thankfulness in his laborious search. He will have 
grasped the generalizations and methods of physical science, 
but he must know to the bottom his Thucydides and Tacitus. 
He will recognize in Homer and Shakespeare the great 
historians of human nature, and he will ever attempt, 
although feeling that failure is certain, to wrest from them 
their secret of narration, to acquire their art of portrayal 
of character. He must be a man of the world, but equally 
well a man of the academy. If, like Thucydides and Tacitus, 
the American historian chooses the history of his own 
country as his field, he may infuse his patriotism into his 
narrative. He will speak of the broad acres and their 
products, the splendid industrial development due to the 
capacity and energy of the captains of industry ; but he will 
like to dwell on the universities and colleges, on the great 
numbers seeking a higher education, on the morality of the 
people, their purity of life, their domestic happiness. He 
will never be weary of referring to Washington and Lincoln, 
feeling that a country with such exemplars is indeed one to 
awaken envy, and he will not forget the brave souls who 
followed where they led. I like to think of the Memorial 
Day orator, speaking thirty years ago with his mind full of 
the Civil War and our Revolution, giving utterance to these 



HISTORY 23 

noble words of Pericles : ''I would have you day by day fix 
your eyes upon the greatness of your country, until you be- 
come filled with love of her ; and when you are impressed by 
the spectacle of her glory, reflect that this empire has been 
acquired by men who knew their duty and had the courage 
to do it ; who in the hour of conflict had the fear of dishonor 
always present to them ; and who, if ever they failed in an 
enterprise, would not allow their virtues to be lost to their 
country, but freely gave their lives to her as the fairest 
offering which they could present at her feast. They re- 
ceived each one for himself a praise which grows not old, 
and the noblest of all sepulchers. For the whole earth is 
the sepulcher of illustrious men; not only are they com- 
memorated by columns and inscriptions in their own coun- 
try, but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten 
memorial of them, graven not on stone, but in the hearts of 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY 

Address delivered at the Meeting of the American Historical Asso- 
ciation in Detroit, December, 1900. 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY 

Called on at the last moment, owing to the illness of Mr, 
Eggleston, to take the place of one whose absence can never 
be fully compensated, I present to you a paper on the writing 
of history. It is in a way a continuance of my inaugural 
address before this association one year ago, and despite 
the continuity of the thought I have endeavored to treat the 
same subject from a different point of view. While going 
over the same ground and drawing my lessons from the same 
historians, it is new matter so far as I have had the honor to 
present it to the American Historical Association. 

A historian, to make a mark, must show some originality 
somewhere in his work. The originality may be in a method 
of investigation ; it may be in the use of some hitherto inac- 
cessible or unprinted material ; it may be in the employment 
of some sources of information open to everybody, but not 
before used, or it may be in a fresh combination of well- 
known and well-elaborated facts. It is this last-named fea- 
ture that leads Mr. Winsor to say, in speaking of the different 
views that may be honestly maintained from working over 
the same material, "The study of history is perennial." I 
think I can make my meaning clearer as to the originality one 
should try to infuse into historical work by drawing an illus- 
tration from the advice of a literary man as to the art of 
writing. Charles Dudley Warner once said to me, ''Every 
one who writes should have something to add to the world's 
stock of knowledge or literary expression. If he falls un- 

27 



28 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

consciously into imitation or quotation, he takes away from 
his originality. No matter if some great writer has expressed 
the thought in better language than you can use, if you take 
his words you detract from your own originality. Express 
your thought feebly in your own way rather than with 
strength by borrowing the words of another." 

This same principle in the art of authorship may be ap- 
plied to the art of writing history. ''Follow your own star/' 
said Emerson, ''and it will lead you to that which none 
other can attain. Imitation is suicide. You must take 
yourself for better or worse as your own portion." Any one 
who is bent upon writing history, may be sure that there is 
in him some originality, that he can add something to the 
knowledge of some period. Let him give himself to medi- 
tation, to searching out what epoch and what kind of treat- 
ment of that epoch is best adapted to his powers and to his 
training. I mean not only the collegiate training, but the 
sort of training one gets consciously or unconsciously from 
the very circumstances of one's life. In the persistence of 
thinking, his subject will flash upon him. Parkman, said 
Lowell, showed genius in the choice of his subject. The 
recent biography of Parkman emphasizes the idea which 
we get from his works — that only a man who lived in the 
virgin forests of this country and loved them, and who had 
traveled in the far West as a pioneer, with Indians for com- 
panions, could have done that work. Parkman's experience 
cannot be had by any one again, and he brought to bear the 
wealth of it in that fifty years' occupation of his. Critics of 
exact knowledge — such as Justin Winsor, for instance — 
find limitations in Parkman's books that may impair the 
permanence of his fame, but I suspect that his is the only 
work in American history that cannot and will not be writ- 
ten over again. The reason of it is that he had a unique 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY 29 

life which has permeated his narrative, giving it the stamp of 
originality. No man whose training had been gained wholly 
in the best schools of Germany, France, or England could 
have written those books. A training racy of the soil was 
needed. '^A practical knowledge," wrote Niebuhr, '^must 
support historical jurisprudence, and if any one has got that 
he can easily master all scholastic speculations." A man's 
knowledge of everyday life in some way fits him for a certain 
field of historical study — in that field lies success. In 
seeking a period, no American need confine himself to his 
own country. '^European history for Americans," said 
Motley, ''has to be almost entirely rewritten." 

I shall touch upon only two of the headings of historical 
originality which I have mentioned. The first that I shall 
speak of is the employment of some sources of information 
open to everybody, but not before used. A significant case 
of this in American history is the use which Doctor von 
Hoist made of newspaper material. Niles's Register, a lot 
of newspaper cuttings, as well as speeches and state papers 
in a compact form, had, of course, been referred to by many 
writers who dealt with the period they covered, but in the 
part of his history covering the ten years from 1850 to 1860 
von Hoist made an extensive and varied employment of 
newspapers by studying the newspaper files themselves. 
As the aim of history is truth, and as newspapers fail sadly 
in accuracy, it is not surprising that many historical students 
believe that the examination of newspapers for any given 
period will not pay for the labor and drudgery involved; 
but the fact that a trained German historical scholar and 
teacher at a German university should have found some 
truth in our newspaper files when he came to write the his- 
tory of our own country, gives to their use for that period 
the seal of scientific approval. Doctor von Hoist used this 



30 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

material with pertinence and effect; his touch was nice. 
I used to wonder at his knowledge of the newspaper world, 
of the men who made and wrote our journals, until he told 
me that when he first came to this country one of his meth- 
ods in gaining a knowledge of English was to read the ad- 
vertisements in the newspapers. Reflection will show one 
what a picture of the life of a people this must be, in addi- 
tion to the news columns. 

No one, of course, will go to newspapers for facts if he can 
find those facts in better-attested documents. The haste 
with which the daily records of the world's doings are made 
up precludes sifting and revision. Yet in the decade be- 
tween 1850 and 1860 you will find facts in the newspapers 
which are nowhere else set down. Public men of command- 
ing position were fond of writing letters to the journals 
with a view to influencing public sentiment. These letters 
in the newspapers are as valuable historical material as if 
they were carefully collected, edited, and published in the 
form of books. Speeches were made which must be read, 
and which will be found nowhere but in the journals. 
The immortal debates of Lincoln and Douglas in 1858 were 
never put into a book until 1860, existing previously only 
in newspaper print. Newspapers are sometimes important 
in fixing a date and in establishing the whereabouts of a man. 
If, for example, a writer draws a fruitful inference from 
the alleged fact that President Lincoln went to see Edwin 
Booth play Hamlet in Washington in February, 1863, and 
if one finds by a consultation of the newspaper theatrical 
advertisements that Edwin Booth did not visit Washington 
during that month, the significance of the inference is de- 
stroyed. Lincoln paid General Scott a memorable visit at 
West Point in June, 1862. You may, if I remember cor- 
rectly, search the books in vain to get at the exact date of 



J 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY 31 

\ 

this visit ; but turn to the newspaper files and you find that 

the President left Washington at such an hour on such a day, 
arrived at Jersey City at a stated time, and made the trans- 
fer to the other railroad which took him to the station oppo- 
site West Point. The time of his leaving West Point and 
the hour of his return to Washington are also given. 

The value of newspapers as an indication of pubhc senti- 
ment is sometimes questioned, but it can hardly be doubted 
that the average man will read the newspaper with the 
sentiments of which he agrees. ''I inquired about news- 
paper opinion," said Joseph Chamberlain in the House of 
Commons last May. '^I knew no other way of getting at 
popular opinion." During the years between 1854 and 1860 
the daily journals were a pretty good reflection of public sen- 
timent in the United States. Wherever, for instance, you 
found the New York Weekly Tribune largely read. Repub- 
lican majorities were sure to be had when election day came. 
For fact and for opinion, if you knew the contributors, 
statements and editorials by them were entitled to as much 
weight as similar public expressions in any other form. You 
get to know Greeley and you learn to recognize his style. 
Now, an editorial from him is proper historical material, 
taking into account always the circumstances under which 
he wrote. The same may be said of Dana and of Hildreth, 
both editorial writers for the Tribune, and of the Washington 
despatches of J. S. Pike. It is interesting to compare the 
public letters of Greeley to the Tribune from Washington in 
1856 with his private letters written at the same time to 
Dana. There are no misstatements in the public letters, 
but there is a suppression of the truth. The explanations 
in the private correspondence are clearer, and you need them 
to know fully how affairs looked in Washington to Greeley 
at the time ; but this fact by no means detracts from the 



32 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

value of the public letters as historical material. I have 
found newspapers of greater value both for fact and opinion 
during the decade of 1850 to 1860 than for the period of the 
Civil War. A comparison of the newspaper accounts of 
battles with the history of them which may be drawn from 
the correspondence and reports in the Official Records of 
the War of the Rebellion will show how inaccurate and mis- 
leading was the war correspondence of the daily journals. 
It could not well be otherwise. The correspondent was 
obliged in haste to write the story of a battle of which he saw 
but a small section, and instead of telling the little part which 
he knew actually, he had to give to a public greedy for news 
a complete survey of the whole battlefield. This story was 
too often colored by his liking or aversion for the generals in 
command. A study of the confidential historical material 
of the Civil War, apart from the military operations, in com- 
parison with the journalistic accounts, gives one a higher 
idea of the accuracy and shrewdness of the newspaper cor- 
respondents. Few important things were brewing at Wash- 
ington of which they did not get an inkling. But I always 
like to think of two signal exceptions. Nothing ever leaked 
out in regard to the famous ''Thoughts for the President's 
consideration," which Seward submitted to Lincoln in 
March, 1861, and only very incorrect guesses of the Presi- 
dent's first emancipation proclamation, brought before his 
Cabinet in July, 1862, got into newspaper print. 

Beware of hasty, strained, and imperfect generalizations. 
A historian should always remember that he is a sort of 
trustee for his readers. No matter how copious may be his 
notes, he cannot fully explain his processes or the reason of 
his confidence in one witness and not in another, his belief in 
one honest man against a half dozen untrustworthy men, 
without such prolixity as to make a general history unread- 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY 33 

able. Now, in this position as trustee he is bound to assert 
nothing for which he has not evidence, as much as an ex- 
ecutor of a will or the trustee for widows and orphans is 
obligated to render a correct account of the moneys in his 
possession. For this reason Grote has said, '^An historian 
is bound to produce the materials upon which he builds, be 
they never so fantastic, absurd, or incredible." Hence the 
necessity for footnotes. While mere illustrative and in- 
teresting footnotes are perhaps to be avoided, on account of 
their redundancy, those which give authority for the state- 
ments in the text can never be in excess. Many good his- 
tories have undoubtedly been published where the authors 
have not printed their footnotes; but they must have had, 
nevertheless, precise records for their authorities. The ad- 
vantage and necessity of printing the notes is that you fur- 
nish your critic an opportunity of finding you out if you have 
mistaken or strained your authorities. Bancroft's example 
is peculiar. In his earlier volumes he used footnotes, but 
in volume vii he changed his plan and omitted notes, 
whether of reference or explanation. Nor do you find them 
in either of his carefully revised editions. ''This is done," 
Bancroft wrote in the preface to his seventh volume, ''not 
from an unwillingness to subject every statement of fact, 
even in its minutest details, to the severest scrutiny; but 
from the variety and the multitude of the papers which 
have been used and which could not be intelligently cited 
without a disproportionate commentary." Again, Blaine's 
"Twenty Years of Congress," aworkwhich, properly weighed, 
is not without historical value, is only to be read with great 
care on account of his hasty and inaccurate generalizations. 
There are evidences of good, honest labor in those two vol- 
umes, much of which must have been done by himself. 
There is an aim at truth and impartiality, but many of his 



34 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

general statements will seem, to any one who has gone over 
the original material, to rest on a slight basis. If Blaine 
had felt the necessity of giving authorities in a footnote for 
every statement about which there might have been a ques- 
tion, he certainly would have written an entirely different 
sort of a book. 

My other head is the originality which comes from a fresh 
combination of known historical facts. 

I do not now call to mind any more notable chapter which 
illustrates this than the chapter of Curtius, ''The years of 
peace." One is perhaps better adapted for the keen enjoy- 
ment of it if he does not know the original material, for his 
suspicion that some of the inferences are strained and unwar- 
ranted might become a certainty. But accepting it as a 
mature and honest elaboration by one of the greatest histo- 
rians of Greece of our day, it is a sample of the vivifying of 
dry bones and of a dovetailing of facts and ideas that makes 
a narrative to charm and instruct. You feel that the spirit 
of that age we all like to think and dream about is there, 
and if you have been so fortunate as to visit the Athens of 
to-day, that chapter, so great is the author's constructive 
imagination, carries you back and makes you for the moment 
live in the Athens of Pericles, of Sophocles, of Phidias and 
Herodotus. 

With the abundance of materials for modern history, and, 
for that reason, our tendency to diffuseness, nothing is so 
important as a thorough acquaintance with the best classic 
models, such as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Tacitus. In 
Herodotus you have an example of an interesting story with 
the unity of the narrative well sustained in spite of certain 
unnecessary digressions. His book is obviously a life work 
and the work of a man who had an extensive knowledge 
gained by reading, social intercourse, and travel, and who 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY 35 

brought his knowledge to bear upon his chosen task. That 
the history is interesting all admit, but in different periods 
of criticism stress is sometimes laid on the untrustworthy- 
character of the narrative, with the result that there has 
been danger of striking Herodotus from the list of histori- 
cal models ; but such is the merit of his work that the Herodo- 
tus cult again revives, and, I take it, is now at its height. 
I received, six years ago, while in Egypt, a vivid impres- 
sion of him whom we used to style the Father of History. 
Spending one day at the great Pyramids, when, after I had 
satisfied my first curiosity, after I had filled my eyes and 
mind with the novelty of the spectacle, I found nothing so 
gratifying to the historic sense as to gaze on those most 
wonderful monuments of human industry, constructed cer- 
tainly 5000 years ago, and to read at the same time the ac- 
count that Herodotus gave of his visit there about 2350 years 
before the date of my own. That same night I read in a 
modern and garish Cairo hotel the current number of the 
London Times. In it was an account of an annual meet- 
ing of the Royal Historical Society and a report of a for- 
mal and carefully prepared address of its president, whose 
subject was '^Herodotus," whose aim was to point out the 
value of the Greek writer as a model to modern historians. 
The Times, for the moment laying aside its habitual attack 
on the then Liberal government, devoted its main leader to 
Herodotus — to his merits and the lessons he conveyed to 
the European writers. The article was a remarkable blend- 
ing of scholarship and good sense, and I ended the day with 
the reflection of what a space in the world's history Herodo- 
tus filled, himself describing the work of twenty-six hundred 
years before his own time and being dilated on in 1894 by 
one of the most modern of nineteenth-century newspapers. 
It is generally agreed, I think, that Thucydides is first in 



36 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

order of time of philosophic historians, but it does not seem 
to me that we have most to learn from him in the philosophic 
quality. The tracing of cause and effect, the orderly se- 
quence of events, is certainly better developed by moderns 
than it has been by ancients. The influence of Darwin and 
the support and proof which he gives to the doctrine of 
evolution furnish a training of thought which was impossible 
to the ancients ; but Thucydides has digested his material 
and compressed his narrative without taking the life out of 
his story in a manner to make us despair, and this does not, 
I take it, come from paucity of materials. A test which I 
began to make as a study in style has helped me in estimat- 
ing the solidity of a writer. Washington Irving formed his 
style by reading attentively from time to time a page of 
Addison and then, closing the book, endeavored to write out 
the same ideas in his own words. In this way his style 
became assimilated to that of the great English essayist. 
I have tried the same mode with several writers. I found 
that the plan succeeded with Macaulay and with Lecky. I 
tried it again and again with Shakespeare and Hawthorne, 
but if I succeeded in writing out the paragraph I found that 
it was because I memorized their very words. To write 
out their ideas in my own language I found impossible. 
I have had the same result with Thucydides in trying to do 
this with his description of the plague in Athens. Now, I 
reason from this in the case of Shakespeare and Thucydides 
that their thought was so concise they themselves got rid of 
all redundancies; hence to effect the reproduction of their 
ideas in any but their own language is practically impos- 
sible. 

It is related of Macaulay somewhere in his " Life and 
Letters," that in a moment of despair, when he instituted 
a comparison between his manuscript and the work of 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY 37 

Thucydides, he thought of throwing his into the fire. I 
suspect that Macaulay had not the knack of discarding ma- 
terial on which he had spent time and effort, seeing how 
easily such events glowed under his graphic pen. This is 
one reason why he is prolix in the last three volumes. The 
first two, which begin with the famous introductory chap- 
ter and continue the story through the revolution of 1688 
to the accession of William and Mary, seem to me models 
of historical composition so far as arrangement, orderly 
method, and liveliness of narration go. Another defect of 
Macaulay is that, while he was an omnivorous reader and 
had a prodigious memory, he was not given to long-continued 
and profound reflection. He read and rehearsed his reading 
in memory, but he did not give himself to '^deep, abstract 
meditation" and did not surrender himself to 'Hhe fruitful 
leisures of the spirit." Take this instance of Macaulay's 
account of a journey: ''The express train reached Holly- 
head about 7 in the evening. I read between London 
and Bangor the lives of the emperors from Maximin 
to Carinus, inclusive, in the Augustine history, and was 
greatly amused and interested." On board the steamer: 
''I put on my greatcoat and sat on deck during the whole 
voyage. As I could not read, I used an excellent substitute 
for reading. I went through ' Paradise Lost ' in my head. 
I could still repeat half of it, and that the best half. 
I really never enjoyed it so much." In Dublin: ''The rain 
was so heavy that I was forced to come back in a covered 
car. While in this detestable vehicle I looked rapidly through 
the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan and thought 
that Trajan made a most creditable figure." It may be 
that Macaulay did not always digest his knowledge well. 
Yet in reading his " Life and Letters " you know that you are 
in company with a man who read many books and you give 



38 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

faith to Thackeray's remark, ''Macaulay reads twenty books 
to write a sentence; he travels a hundred miles to make 
a line of description." It is a matter of regret that the 
progress of historical criticism and the scientific teaching 
of history have had the tendency to drive Macaulay out of 
the fashion with students, and I know not whether the good 
we used to get out of him thirty-five years ago can now be 
got from other sources. For I seem to miss something that 
we historical students had a generation ago — and that is 
enthusiasm for the subject. The enthusiasm that we had 
then had — the desire to compass all knowledge, the wish to 
gather the fruits of learning and lay them devoutly at the 
feet of our chosen muse — this enthusiasm we owed to 
Macaulay and to Buckle. Quite properly, no one reads 
Buckle now, and I cannot gainsay what John Morley said 
of Macaulay: "Macaulay seeks truth, not as she should 
be sought, devoutly, tentatively, with the air of one touch- 
ing the hem of a sacred garment, but clutching her by the 
hair of the head and dragging her after him in a kind of 
boisterous triumph, a prisoner of war and not a goddess." 
It is, nevertheless, true that Macaulay and Buckle imparted 
a new interest to history. 

I have spoken of the impression we get of Macaulay 
through reading his " Life and Letters." Of Carlyle, in read- 
ing the remarkable biography of him, we get the notion of a 
great thinker as well as a great reader. He was not as keen 
and diligent in the pursuit of material as Macaulay. He 
did not like to work in libraries ; he wanted every book he 
used in his own study — padded as it was against the noises 
which drove him wild. H. Morse Stephens relates that 
Carlyle would not use a collection of documents relating to 
the French Revolution in the British Museum for the reason 
that the museum authorities would not have a private room 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY 39 

reserved for him where he might study. Rather than work 
in a room with other people, he neglected this valuable 
material. But Carlyle has certainly digested and used his 
material well. His ^' French Revolution " seems to approach 
the historical works of the classics in there being so much in 
a little space. ''With the gift of song," Lowell said, ''Car- 
lyle would have been the greatest of epic poets since Homer ;" 
and he also wrote, Carlyle 's historical compositions are no 
more history than the historical plays of Shakespeare. 

The contention between the scientific historians and those 
who hold to the old models is interesting and profitable. 
One may enjoy the controversy and derive benefit from it 
without taking sides. I suspect that there is truth in the 
view of both. We may be sure that the long-continued study 
and approval by scholars of many ages of the works of He- 
rodotus, Thucydides, and Tacitus implies historical merit on 
their part in addition to literary art. It is, however, in- 
teresting to note the profound difference between President 
Woolsey's opinion of Thucydides and that of some of his 
late German critics. Woolsey said, "I have such confidence 
in the absolute truthfulness of Thucydides that were he 
really chargeable with folly, as Grote alleges [in the affair of 
Amphipolis], I believe he would have avowed it." On 
the other hand, a German critic, cited by Holm, says that 
Thucydides is a poet who invents facts partly in order to 
teach people how things ought to be done and partly be- 
cause he liked to depict certain scenes of horror. He says 
further, a narrative of certain occurrences is so full of impos- 
sibilities that it must be pure invention on the part of the 
historian. Another German maintains that Thucydides has 
indulged in "a fanciful and half-romantic picture of events." 
But Holm, whom the scientific historians claim as one of 
their own, says, "Thucydides still remains a trustworthy 



40 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

historical authority ;" and, ''On the whole, therefore, the old 
view that he is a truthful writer is not in the least shaken." 
Again Holm writes: ''Attempts have been made to convict 
Thucydides of serious inaccuracies, but without success. 
On the other hand, the writer of this work [that is, the scien- 
tific historian, Holm] is able to state that he has followed 
him topographically for the greater part of the sixth and 
seventh books — and consequently for nearly one fourth 
of the whole history — and has found that the more care- 
fully his words are weighed and the more accurately the 
ground is studied the clearer both the text and events be- 
come, and this is certainly high praise." Holm and Percy 
Gardner, both of whom have the modern method and have 
studied diligently the historical evidence from coins and 
inscriptions, placed great reliance on Herodotus, who, as 
well as Thucydides and Tacitus, is taken by scholars as a 
model of historical composition. 

The sifting of time settles the reputations of historians. 
Of the English of the eighteenth century only one historian 
has come down to us as worthy of serious study. Time is 
wasted in reading Hume and Robertson as models, and no 
one goes to them for facts. But thirty years ago no course 
of historical reading was complete without Hume. In this 
century the sifting process still goes on. One loses little by 
not reading Alison's "History of Europe." But he was much 
in vogue in the '50's. Harper^ s Magazine published a part of 
his history as a serial. His rounded periods and bombastic 
utterances were quoted with delight by those who thought 
that history was not history unless it was bombastic. Emer- 
son says somewhere, "Avoid adjectives; let your nouns do 
the work." There was hardly a sentence in Alison which 
did not traverse this rule. One of his admirers told me that 
the great merit of his style was his choiceness and aptness 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY 41 

in his use of adjectives. It is a style which now provokes 
merriment, and even had Alison been learned and impartial, 
and had he possessed a good method, his style for the present 
taste would have killed his book. Gibbon is sometimes called 
pompous, but place him by the side of Alison and what one 
may have previously called pompousness one now calls 
dignity. 

Two of the literary historians of our century survive — 
Carlyle and Macaulay. They may be read with care. We 
may do as Cassius said Brutus did to him, observe all their 
faults, set them in a note-book, learn and con them by rote ; 
nevertheless we shall get good from them. Oscar Browning 
said — I am quoting H. Morse Stephens again — of Carlyle 's 
description of the flight of the king to Varennes, that 
in every one of his details where a writer could go wrong, 
Carlyle had gone wrong; but added that, although all the 
details were wrong, Carlyle's account is essentially accurate. 
No defense, I think, can be made of Carlyle's statement that 
Marat was a ''blear-eyed dog leach," nor of those state- 
ments from which you get the distinct impression that the 
complexion of Robespierre was green; nevertheless, every 
one who studies the French Revolution reads Carlyle, and he 
is read because the reading is profitable. The battle descrip- 
tions in Carlyle's " Frederick the Great " are well worth read- 
ing. How refreshing they are after technical descriptions ! 
Carlyle said once, "Battles since Homer's time, when they 
were nothing but fighting mobs, have ceased to be worth 
reading about," but he made the modern battle interesting. 

Macaulay is an honest partisan. You learn very soon how 
to take him, and when distrust begins one has correctives 
in Gardiner and Ranke. Froude is much more dangerous. 
His splendid narrative style does not compensate for his 
inaccuracies. Langlois makes an apt quotation from 



42 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Froude. ''We saw/' says Froude, of the city of Adelaide, 
in Australia, ''below us in a basin, with the river winding 
through it, a city of 150,000 inhabitants, none of whom has 
ever known or ever will know one moment's anxiety as to 
the recurring regularity of three meals a day." Now for 
the facts. Langlois says: "Adelaide is built on an emi- 
nence; no river runs through it. When Froude visited it 
the population did not exceed 75,000, and it was suffering 
from a famine at the time." Froude was curious in his in- 
accuracies. He furnished the data which convict him of 
error. He quoted inaccurately the Simancas manuscripts 
and deposited correct copies in the British Museum. Car- 
lyle and Macaulay are honest partisans and you know how 
to take them, but for constitutional inaccuracy such as 
Froude's no allowance can be made. 

Perhaps it may be said of Green that he combines 
the merits of the scientific and literary historian. He has 
written an honest and artistic piece of work. But he is 
not infallible. I have been told on good authority that in 
his reference to the Thirty Years' War he has hardly stated 
a single fact correctly, yet the general impression you get 
from his account is correct. Saintsbury writes that Green 
has "out-Macaulayed Macaulay in reckless abuse" of Dry- 
den. Stubbs and Gardiner are preeminently the scientific 
historians of England. Of Stubbs, from actual knowledge, 
I regret that I cannot speak, but the reputation he has 
among historical experts is positive proof of his great value. 
Of Gardiner I can speak with knowledge. Any one who 
desires to write history will do well to read every line Gar- 
diner has written — not the text alone, but also the notes. 
It is an admirable study in method which will bear impor- 
tant fruit. But because Gibbon, Gardiner, and Stubbs 
should be one's chief reliance, it does not follow that one may 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY 43 

neglect Macaulay, Carlyle, Tacitus, Thucydides, and Herod- 
otus. Gardiner himself has learned much from Macaulay 
and Carlyle. All of them may be criticised on one point or 
another, but they all have lessons for us. 

We shall all agree that the aim of history is to get at the 
truth and express it as clearly as possible. The differences 
crop out when we begin to elaborate our meaning. ''This 
I regard as the historian's highest function," writes Tacitus, 
'Ho let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold 
out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words 
and deeds ;" while Langlois and the majority of the scholars 
of Oxford are of the opinion that the formation and expres- 
sion of ethical judgments, the approval or condemnation of 
Julius Caesar or of Caesar Borgia is not a thing within the 
historian's province. Let the controversy go on ! It is 
well worth one's while to read the presentations of the sub- 
ject from the different points of view. But infallibility 
will nowhere be found. Mommsen and Curtius in their de- 
tailed investigations received applause from those who ad- 
hered rigidly to the scientific view of history, but when they 
addressed the public in their endeavor, it is said, to pro- 
duce an effect upon it, they relaxed their scientific rigor; 
hence such a chapter as Curtius's "The years of peace," and 
in another place his transmuting a conjecture of Grote into 
an assertion; hence Mommsen's effusive panegyric of Caesar. 
If Mommsen did depart from the scientific rules, I suspect 
that it came from no desire of a popular success, but rather 
from the enthusiasm of much learning. The examples of 
Curtius and Mommsen show probably that such a departure 
from strict impartiality is inherent in the writing of general 
history, and it comes, I take it, naturally and unconsciously. 
Holm is a scientific historian, but on the Persian Invasion 
he writes: ''I have followed Herodotus in many passages 



44 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

which are unauthenticated and probably even untrue, be- 
cause he reproduces the popular traditions of the Greeks." 
And again: ''History in the main ought only to be a 
record of facts, but now and then the historian may be 
allowed to display a certain interest in his subject." These 
expressions traverse the canons of scientific history as much 
as the sayings of the ancient historiographers themselves. 
But because men have warm sympathies that cause them 
to color their narratives, shall no more general histories be 
written ? Shall history be confined to the printing of origi- 
nal documents and to the publication of learned monographs 
in which the discussion of authorities is mixed up with the 
relation of events? The proper mental attitude of the 
general historian is to take no thought of popularity. The 
remark of Macaulay that he would make his history take the 
place of the last novel on my lady's table is not scientific. 
The audience which the general historian should have in 
mind is that of historical experts — men who are devoting 
their lives to the study of history. Words of approval 
from them are worth more than any popular recognition, 
for theirs is the enduring praise. Their criticism should be 
respected ; there should be unceasing effort to avoid giving 
them cause for fault-finding. No labor should be despised 
which shall enable one to present things just as they are. 
Our endeavor should be to think straight and see clear. An 
incident should not be related on insufficient evidence because 
it is interesting, but an affair well attested should not be dis- 
carded because it happens to have a human interest. I feel 
quite sure that the cardinal aim of Gardiner was to be ac- 
curate and to proportion his story well. In this he has suc- 
ceeded ; but it is no drawback that he has made his volumes 
interesting. Jacob D. Cox, who added to other accomplish- 
ments that of being learned in the law, and who looked upon 



CONCERNING THE WRITING OF HISTORY 45 

Gardiner with such reverence that he called him the Chief 
Justice, said there was no reason why he should read novels, 
as he found Gardiner's history more interesting than any 
romance. The scientific historians have not revolutionized 
historical methods, but they have added much. The process 
of accretion has been going on since, at any rate, the 
time of Herodotus, and the canons for weighing evidence 
and the synthesis of materials are better understood now 
than ever before, for they have been reduced from many 
models. I feel sure that there has been a growth in candor. 
Compare the critical note to a later edition which Macaulay 
wrote in 1857, maintaining the truth of his charge against 
William Penn, with the manly way in which Gardiner owns 
up when an error or insufficient evidence for a statement is 
pointed out. It is the ethics of the profession to be forward 
in correcting errors. The difference between the old and the 
new lies in the desire to have men think you are infallible 
and the desire to be accurate. 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 

Lecture read before the History Club of Harvard University, April 
27, 1908, and at Yale, Columbia, and Western Reserve Univer- 
sities. 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 

I AM assuming that among my audience there are some 
students who aspire to become historians. To these espe- 
cially my discourse is addressed. 

It is not to be expected that I should speak positively 
and in detail on matters of education. Nevertheless, a man 
of sixty who has devoted the better part of his life to reading, 
observation, and reflection must have gained, if only through 
a perception of his own deficiencies, some ideas that should 
be useful to those who have life's experience before them. 
Hence, if a Freshman should say to me, I wish to be a 
historian, tell me what preliminary studies you would ad- 
vise, I should welcome the opportunity. From the nature 
of the case, the history courses will be sought and studied in 
their logical order and my advice will have to do only with 
collateral branches of learning. 

In the first place, I esteem a knowledge of Latin and French 
of the highest importance. By a knowledge of French, I mean 
that you should be able to read it substantially as well as you 
read English, so that when you have recourse to a dictionary 
it will be a French dictionary and not one of the French-Eng- 
lish kind. The historical and other literature that is thus 
opened up to you enables you to live in another world, with 
a point of view impossible to one who reads for pleasure only 
in his own tongue. To take two instances: Moliere is a 
complement to Shakespeare, and the man who knows his 
Moliere as he does his Shakespeare has made a propitious 

B 49 



50 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

beginning in that study of human character which must be 
understood if he desires to write a history that shall gain 
readers. "I have known and loved Moliere," said Goethe, 
''from my youth and have learned from him during my 
whole life. I never fail to read some of his plays every year, 
that I may keep up a constant intercourse with what is ex- 
cellent. It is not merely the perfectly artistic treatment 
which delights me ; but particularly the amiable nature, the 
highly formed mind of the poet. There is in him a grace 
and a feeling for the decorous, and a tone of good society, 
which his innate beautiful nature could only attain by 
daily intercourse with the most eminent men of his age. " ^ 

My other instance is Balzac. In reading him for pleasure, 
as you read Dickens and Thackeray, you are absorbing an 
exact and fruitful knowledge of French society of the Res- 
toration and of Louis Philippe. Moreover you are still 
pursuing your study of human character under one of the 
acute critics of the nineteenth century. Balzac has always 
seemed to me peculiarly French; his characters belong 
essentially to Paris or to the provinces. I associate Eugenie 
Grandet with Saumur in the Touraine and Cesar Birotteau 
with the Rue St. Honore in Paris ; and all his other men and 
women move naturally in the great city or in the prov- 
inces which he has given them for their home. A devoted 
admirer however tells me that in his opinion Balzac has 
created universal types ; the counterpart of some of his men 
may be seen in the business and social world of Boston, and 
the peculiarly sharp and dishonest transaction which 
brought Cesar Birotteau to financial ruin was here exactly 
reproduced. 

The French language and literature seem to possess the 
merits which ours lack; and the writer of history cannot 

* Conversations of Goethe, Eng. trans., 230. 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 51 

afford to miss the lessons he will receive by a constant read- 
ing of the best French prose. 

I do not ask the Freshman who is going to be a historian 
to realize Macaulay's ideal of a scholar, to ''read Plato with 
his feet on the fender," ^ but he should at least acquire a 
pretty thorough knowledge of classical Latin, so that he can 
read Latin, let me say, as many of us read German, that is 
with the use of a lexicon and the occasional translation of a 
sentence or a paragraph into English to arrive at its exact 
meaning. Of this, I can speak from the point of view of one 
who is deficient. The reading of Latin has been for me a 
grinding labor and I would have liked to read with pleasure 
in the original, the History and Annals of Tacitus, Csesar's 
Gallic and Civil wars and Cicero's Orations and Pri- 
vate Letters even to the point of following Macaulay's 
advice, ''Soak your mind with Cicero." ^ These would have 
given me, I fancy, a more vivid impression of two periods 
of Roman history than I now possess. Ferrero, who is im- 
parting a fresh interest to the last period of the Roman re- 
public, owes a part of his success, I think, to his thorough 
digestion and effective use of Cicero's letters, which have the 
faculty of making one acquainted with Cicero just as if he 
were a modern man. During a sojourn on the shores of 
Lake Geneva, I read two volumes of Voltaire's private cor- 
respondence, and later, while passing the winter in Rome, 
the four volumes of Cicero's letters in French. I could not 
help thinking that in the republic of letters one was not in 
time at a far greater distance from Cicero than from Vol- 
taire. While the impression of nearness may have come from 
reading both series of letters in French, or because, to use 
John Morley's words, "two of the most perfect masters 
of the art of letter writing were Cicero and Voltaire," ^ 
» Trevelyan, I, 86. ' Life of Gladstone, II, 181. 



52 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

there is a decided flavor of the nineteenth century in Cicero's 
words to a good Hver whom he is going to visit. '^You 
must not reckon/' he wrote, '' on my eating your hors 
d'oeuvre. I have given them up entirely. The time has 
gone by when I can abuse my stomach with your olives and 
your Lucanian sausages." ^ 

To repeat then, if the student, who is going to be a his- 
torian, uses his acquisitive years in obtaining a thorough 
knowledge of French and Latin, he will afterwards be spared 
useless regrets. He will naturally add German for the pur- 
pose of general culture and, if languages come easy, perhaps 
Greek. ''Who is not acquainted with another language," 
said Goethe, ''knows not his own." A thorough knowl- 
edge of Latin and French is a long stride towards an effi- 
cient mastery of English. In the matter of diction, the 
English writer is rarely in doubt as to words of Anglo-Saxon 
origin, for these are deep-rooted in his childhood and his 
choice is generally instinctive. The difficulties most per- 
sistently besetting him concern words that come from the 
Latin or the French; and here he must use reason or the 
dictionary or both. The author who has a thorough knowl- 
edge of Latin and French will argue with himself as to the 
correct diction, will follow Emerson's advice, "Know words 
etymologically ; pull them apart ; see how they are made ; 
and use them only where they fit." ^ As it is in action 
through life, so it is in writing ; the conclusions arrived at by 
reason are apt to be more valuable than those which we 
accept on authority. The reasoned literary style is more 
virile than that based on the dictionary. A judgment ar- 
rived at by argument sticks in the memory, while it is neces- 
sary for the user of the dictionary constantly to invoke 
authority, so that the writer who reasons out the meaning 

» III, 51. 2 Talks with Emerson, 23. 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 53 

of words may constantly accelerate his pace, for the doubt 
and decision of yesterday is to-day a solid acquirement, in- 
grained in his mental being. I have lately been reading a 
good deal of Gibbon and I cannot imagine his having had 
frequent recourse to a dictionary. I do not remember even 
an allusion either in his autobiographies or in his private 
letters to any such aid. Undoubtedly his thorough knowl- 
edge of Latin and French, his vast reading of Latin, French, 
and English books, enabled him to dispense with the thumb- 
ing of a dictionary and there was probably a reasoning 
process at the back of every important word. It is difficult, 
if not impossible, to improve on Gibbon by the substitution 
of one word for another. 

A rather large reading of Sainte-Beuve gives me the same 
impression. Indeed his literary fecundity, the necessity of 
having the Causerie ready for each Monday's issue of the 
Constitutionnel or the Moniteur, precluded a study of words 
while composing, and his rapid and correct writing was un- 
doubtedly due to the training obtained by the process of 
reasoning. Charles Sumner seems to be an exception to 
my general rule. Although presumably he knew Latin 
well, he was a slave to dictionaries. He generally had five 
at his elbow (Johnson, Webster, Worcester, Walker, and 
Pickering) and when in doubt as to the use of a word he 
consulted all five and let the matter be decided on the Ameri- 
can democratic principle of majority rule.^ Perhaps this 
is one cause of the stilted and artificial character of Sumner's 
speeches which, unlike Daniel Webster's, are not to be thought 
of as literature. One does not associate dictionaries with 
Webster. Thus had I written the sentence without thinking 
of a not infrequent confusion between Noah and Daniel 
Webster, and this confusion reminded me of a story which 

' My Vol. II, 142, n. 2. 



54 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

John Fiske used to tell with gusto and which some of you 
may not have heard. An English gentleman remarked to an 
American: ''What a giant intellect that Webster of yours 
had ! To think of so great an orator and statesman writing 
that dictionary ! But I felt sure that one who towered so 
much above his fellows would come to a bad end and I was 
not a bit surprised to learn that he had been hanged for the 
murder of Dr. Parkman." 

To return to my theme: One does not associate dic- 
tionaries with Daniel Webster. He was given to preparing 
his speeches in the solitudes of nature, and his first Bunker 
Hill oration, delivered in 1825, was mainly composed while 
wading in a trout stream and desultorily fishing for trout.^ 
Joe Jefferson, who loved fishing as well as Webster, used to 
say, ''The trout is a gentleman and must be treated as such." 
Webster's companion might have believed that some such 
thought as this was passing through the mind of the great 
Daniel as, standing middle deep in the stream, he uttered 
these sonorous words : "Venerable men ! You have come down 
to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously 
lengthened out your lives that you might behold this joyous 
day." I think Daniel Webster for the most part reasoned 
out his choice of words; he left the dictionary work to 
others. After delivery, he threw down the manuscript of 
his eulogy on Adams and Jefferson and said to a student in 
his law office, "There, Tom, please to take that discourse and 
weed out the Latin words." ^ 

When doubtful as to the use of words, I should have been 
helped by a better knowledge of Latin and enabled very often 
to write with a surer touch. Though compelled to resort 
frequently to the dictionary, I early learned to pay little 
attention to the definition but to regard with care the illus- 

> Curtis, I, 250. =< Ibid., I, 252. 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIA.N 55 

trative meaning in the citations from standard authors. 
When I began writing I used the Imperial Dictionary, an 
improvement over Webster in this respect. Soon the Cen- 
tury Dictionary began to appear, and best of all the New- 
English Dictionary on historical principles edited by Murray 
and Bradley and published by the Clarendon Press at Ox- 
ford. A study of the mass of quotations in these two dic- 
tionaries undoubtedly does much to atone for the lack of 
linguistic knowledge ; and the tracing of the history of words, 
as it is done in the Oxford dictionary, makes any inquiry as 
to the meaning of a word fascinating work for the historian. 
Amongst the multiplicity of aids for the student and the 
writer no single one is so serviceable as this product of labor 
and self-sacrifice, fostered by the Clarendon Press, to whom, 
all writers in the English language owe a debt of gratitude. 

Macaulay had a large fund of knowledge on which he 
might base his reasoning, and his indefatigable mind wel- 
comed any outside assistance. He knew Greek and Latin 
thoroughly and a number of other languages, but it is related 
of him that he so thumbed his copy of Johnson's Dictionary 
that he was continually sending it to the binder. In return 
for his mastery of the languages, the dictionaries are fond of 
quoting Macaulay. If I may depend upon a rough mental 
computation, no prose writer of the nineteenth century is 
so frequently cited. "He never wrote an obscure sentence 
in his life," said John Morley ; ^ and this is partly due to his 
exact use of words. There is never any doubt about his 
meaning. Macaulay began the use of Latin words at an 
early age. When four and a half years old he was asked if 
he had got over the toothache, to which question came 
this reply, "The agony is abated." 

Mathematics beyond arithmetic are of no use to the his- 

* Miscellanies, I, 275. 



56 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

torian and may be entirely discarded. I do not ignore John 
Stuart Mill's able plea for them, some words of which are 
worth quoting. ''Mathematical studies," he said, ''are of 
immense benefit to the student's education by habituating 
him to precision. It is one of the peculiar excellences of 
mathematical discipline that the mathematician is never 
satisfied with an a peu pres. He requires the exact truth. . . . 
The practice of mathematical reasoning gives wariness of 
the mind ; it accustoms us to demand a sure footing." ^ 
Mill, however, is no guide except for exceptionally gifted 
youth. He began to learn Greek when he was three years 
old, and by the time he had reached the age of twelve had 
read a good part of Latin and Greek literature and knew 
elementary geometry and algebra thoroughly. 

The three English historians who have most influenced 
thought from 1776 to 1900 are those whom John Morley 
called " great born men of letters " ^ — Gibbon, Macaulay, and 
Carlyle; and two of these despised mathematics. "As soon 
as I understood the principles," wrote Gibbon in his "Auto- 
biography," "I relinquished forever the pursuit of the Mathe- 
matics; nor can I lament that I desisted before my mind 
was hardened by the habit of rigid demonstration, so de- 
structive of the finer feelings of moral evidence, which must 
however determine the actions and opinions of our lives." ^ 
Macaulay, while a student at Cambridge, wrote to his mother : 
"Oh, for words to express my abomination of mathematics 
. . . ' Discipline' of the mind ! Say rather starvation, con- 
finement, torture, annihilation ! . . . I feel myself be- 
coming a personification of Algebra, a living trigonometrical 
canon, a walking table of logarithms. All my perceptions 
of elegance and beauty gone, or at least going. . . . Fare- 

1 Exam, of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, II, 310, 311. 
=* Gladstone, I, 195. » p. 142. 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 57 

well then Homer and Sophocles and Cicero." ^ I must in 
fairness state that in after life Macaulay regretted his lack of 
knowledge of mathematics and physics, but his career and 
Gibbon's demonstrate that mathematics need have no place 
on the list of the historian's studies. Carlyle, however, 
showed mathematical ability which attracted the attention 
of Legendre and deemed himself sufficiently qualified to 
apply, when he was thirty-nine years old, for the professor- 
ship of Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh. He did 
not succeed in obtaining the post but, had he done so, he 
''would have made," so Froude his biographer thinks, ''the 
school of Astronomy at Edinburgh famous throughout Eu- 
rope." ^ When fifty-two, Carlyle said that "the man who 
had mastered the first forty-seven propositions of Euclid 
stood nearer to God than he had done before." ^ I may cap 
this with some words of Emerson, who in much of his 
thought resembled Carlyle: "What hours of melancholy 
my mathematical works cost ! It was long before I learned 
that there is something wrong with a man's brain who loves 
them." ' 

Mathematics are of course the basis of many studies, 
trades, and professions and are sometimes of benefit as a 
recreation for men of affairs. Devotion to Euclid undoubt- 
edly added to Lincoln's strength, but the necessary range 
of knowledge for the historian is so vast that he cannot spend 
his evenings and restless nights in the solution of mathe- 
matical problems. In short, mathematics are of no more 
use to him than is Greek to the civil or mechanical engineer. 

In the category with mathematics must be placed a de- 
tailed study of any of the physical or natural sciences. I 
think that a student during his college course should have 

' Trevelyan, I, 91. ^ Froude, II, 317. 

3 Nichol, 20. * Talks with Emerson, 162. 



58 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

a year's work in a chemical laboratory or else, if his taste 
inclines him to botany, geology, or zoology, a year's training 
of his observing powers in some one of these studies. For he 
ought to get, while at an impressible age, a superficial knowl- 
edge of the methods of scientific men, as a basis for his future 
reading. We all know that science is moving the world 
and to keep abreast with the movement is a necessity for 
every educated man. Happily, there are scientific men who 
popularize their knowledge. John Fiske, Huxley, and Tyn- 
dall presented to us the theories and demonstrations of science 
in a literary style that makes learning attractive. Huxley 
and Tyndall were workers in laboratories and gave us the 
results of their patient and long-continued experiments. It 
is too much to expect that every generation will produce 
men of the remarkable power of expression of Huxley and 
John Fiske, but there will always be clear writers who will 
delight in instructing the general public in language easily 
understood. In an address which I delivered eight or nine 
years ago before the American Historical Association, I 
cheerfully conceded that, in the realm of intellectual en- 
deavor, the natural and physical sciences should have the 
precedence of history. The question with us now is not 
which is the nobler pursuit, but how is the greatest economy 
of time to be compassed for the historian. My advice is in 
the line of concentration. Failure in life arises frequently 
from intellectual scattering ; hence I like to see the historical 
student getting his physical and natural science at second- 
hand. 

The religious and political revolutions of the last four 
hundred years have weakened authority; but in intellec- 
tual development I believe that in general an important 
advantage lies in accepting the dicta of specialists. In this 
respect our scientific men may teach us a lesson. One not 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 59 

infrequently meets a naturalist or a physician, who possesses 
an excellent knowledge of history, acquired by reading the 
works of general historians who have told an interesting 
story. He would laugh at the idea that he must verify the 
notes of his author and read the original documents, for he 
has confidence that the interpretation is accurate and truth- 
ful. This is all that I ask of the would-be historian. For 
the sake of going to the bottom of things in his own special 
study, let him take his physical and natural science on trust 
and he may well begin to do this during his college course. 
As a manner of doing this, there occur to me three interest- 
ing biographies, the Life of Darwin, the Life of Huxley, 
and the Life of Pasteur, which give the important part of 
the story of scientific development during the last half of 
the nineteenth century. Now I believe that a thorough 
mastery of these three books will be worth more to the 
historical student than any driblets of science that he may 
pick up in an unsystematic college course. 

With this elimination of undesirable studies — undesirable 
because of lack of time — there remains ample time for those 
studies which are necessary for the equipment of a historian ; 
to wit, languages, histories, English, French, and Latin litera- 
ture, and as much of economics as his experienced teachers 
advise. Let him also study the fine arts as well as he can in 
America, fitting himself for an appreciation of the great works 
of architecture, sculpture, and painting in Europe which he 
will recognize as landmarks of history in their potent influ- 
ence on the civilization of mankind. Let us suppose that 
our hypothetical student has marked out on these lines his 
college course of four years, and his graduate course of three. 
At the age of twenty-five he will then have received an 
excellent college education. The university with its learned 
and hard-working teachers, its wealth, its varied and whole- 



60 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

some traditions has done for him the utmost possible. 
Henceforward his education must depend upon himself 
and, unless he has an insatiable love of reading, he had better 
abandon the idea of becoming a historian ; for books, pam- 
phlets, old newspapers, and manuscripts are the stock of his 
profession and to them he must show a single-minded de- 
votion. He must love his library as Pasteur did his labora- 
tory and must fill with delight most of the hours of the day 
in reading or writing. To this necessity there is no alter- 
native. Whether it be in general preparation or in the 
detailed study of a special period, there is no end to the ma- 
terial which may be read with advantage. The young man 
of twenty-five can do no better than to devote five years of 
his life to general preparation. And what enjoyment he 
has before him ! He may draw upon a large mass of his- 
tories and biographies, of books of correspondence, of poems, 
plays, and novels; it is then for him to select with dis- 
crimination, choosing the most valuable, as they afford 
him facts, augment his knowledge of human nature, and 
teach him method and expression. ''A good book," said 
Milton, ''is the precious life blood of a master spirit," 
and every good book which wins our student's interest 
and which he reads carefully will help him directly or 
indirectly in his career. And there are some books which 
he will wish to master, as if he were to be subjected 
to an examination on them. As to these he will be guided 
by strong inclination and possibly with a view to the sub- 
ject of his magnum opus; but if these considerations be 
absent and if the work has not been done in the university, 
I cannot too strongly recommend the mastery of Gibbon's 
''Decline and Fall" and Bryce's "Holy Roman Empire." 
Gibbon merits close study because his is undoubtedly the 
greatest history of modern times and because it is, in the 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 61 

words of Carlyle, a splendid bridge from the old world to the 
new. He should be read in the edition of Bury, whose 
scholarly introduction gives a careful and just estimate of 
Gibbon and whose notes show the results of the latest re- 
searches. This edition does not include Guizot's and Mil- 
man's notes, which seem to an old-fashioned reader of Gib- 
bon like myself worthy of attention, especially those on the 
famous Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters. Bryce's ''Holy 
Roman Empire" is a fitting complement to Gibbon, and the 
intellectual possession of the two is an education in itself 
which will be useful in the study of any period of history that 
may be chosen. 

The student who reads Gibbon will doubtless be influenced 
by his many tributes to Tacitus and will master the Roman 
historian. I shall let Macaulay furnish the warrant for a 
close study of Thucydides. "This day," Macaulay said, 
when in his thirty-fifth year, ''I finished Thucydides after 
reading him with inexpressible interest and admiration. 
He is the greatest historian that ever lived." Again during 
the same year he wrote : "What are all the Roman historians 
to the great Athenian? I do assure you there is no prose 
composition in the world, not even the oration on the Crown, 
which I place so high as the seventh book of Thucydides. 
It is the ne plus ultra of human art. I was delighted to find 
in Gray's letters the other day this query to Wharton : 'The 
retreat from Syracuse — is or is it not the finest thing you 
ever read in your life?' . . . Most people read all the 
Greek they ever read before they are five and twenty. 
They never find time for such studies afterwards until 
they are in the dechne of life ; and then their knowledge of 
the language is in great measure lost, and cannot easily be 
recovered. Accordingly, almost all the ideas that people 
have of Greek literature are ideas formed while they were 



62 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

still very young. A young man, whatever his genius may 
be, is no judge of such a writer as Thucydides. I had no 
high opinion of him ten years ago. I have now been reading 
him with a mind accustomed to historical researches and 
to political affairs and I am astonished at my own former 
blindness and at his greatness." ^ 

I have borrowed John Morley's words, speaking of Gibbon, 
Macaulay, and Carlyle as 'Hhree great born men of letters." 
Our student cannot therefore afford to miss a knowledge of 
Macaulay's History, but the Essays, except perhaps three 
or four of the latest ones, need not be read. In a pref- 
ace to the authorized edition of the Essays, Macaulay wrote 
that he was ''sensible of their defects," deemed them ''imper- 
fect pieces," and did not think that they were "worthy of a 
permanent place in English literature." For instance, his 
essay on Milton contained scarcely a paragraph which his 
matured judgment approved. Macaulay 's peculiar faults 
are emphasized in his Essays and much of the harsh criti- 
cism which he has received comes from the glaring defects of 
these earlier productions. His history, however, is a great 
book, shows extensive research, a sane method and an ex- 
cellent power of narration ; and when he is a partisan, he is 
so honest and transparent that the effect of his partiality 
is neither enduring nor mischievous. 

I must say further to the student: read either Carlyle's 
"French Revolution" or his "Frederick the Great," I 
care not which, although it is well worth one's while to 
read both. If your friends who maintain that history 
is a science convince you that the "French Revolution" 
is not history, as perhaps they may, read it as a narra- 
tive poem. Truly Carlyle spoke rather like a poet than 
a historian when he wrote to his wife (in his forty-first 
> Trevelyan, I, 379, 387, 409. 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 63 

year) : ''A hundred pages more and this cursed book is flung 
out of me. I mean to write with force of fire till that con- 
summation; above all with the speed of fire. ... It all 
stands pretty fair in my head, nor do I mean to investigate 
much more about it, but to splash down what I know in 
large masses of colors, that it may look like a smoke-and- 
flame conflagration in the distance, which it is." ^ It was 
Carlyle's custom to work all of the morning and take a soli- 
tary walk in Hyde Park in the afternoon, when looking upon 
the gay scene, the display of wealth and fashion, "seeing," 
as he said, ''all the carriages dash hither and thither and so 
many human bipeds cheerily hurrying along," he said to 
himself: ''There you go, brothers, in your gilt carriages and 
prosperities, better or worse, and make an extreme bother 
and confusion, the devil very largely in it. . . . Not one 
of you could do what I am doing, and it concerns you too, 
if you did but know it." ^ When the book was done he 
wrote to his brother, "It is a wild, savage book, itself a kind 
of French Revolution." ^ From its somewhat obscure style 
it requires a slow perusal and careful study, but this serves 
all the more to fix it in the memory causing it to remain an 
abiding influence. 

There are eight volumes of "Frederick the Great," contain- 
ing, according to Barrett Wendell's computation, over one 
million words ; and this eighteenth-century tale, with its large 
number of great and little characters, its "mass of living 
facts" impressed Wendell chiefly with its unity. "What- 
ever else Carlyle was," he wrote, "the unity of this enormous 
book proves him, when he chose to be, a Titanic artist." * 
Only those who have striven for unity in a narrative can 
appreciate the tribute contained in these words. It was a 

1 Froude, III, 64, 65. ' Ibid., II, 385; III, 59. 

3 Ibid., Ill, 73. •• English Composition, 158. 



64 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

struggle, too, for Carlyle. Fifty-six years old when he con- 
ceived the idea of Frederick, his nervousness and irritability 
were a constant torment to himself and his devoted wife. 
Many entries in his journal tell of his ''dismal continual 
wrestle with Friedrich," ^ perhaps the most characteristic 
of which is this: ''My Frederick looks as if it would never 
take shape in me ; in fact the problem is to burn away the 
immense dungheap of the eighteenth century, with its ghastly 
cants, foul, blind sensualities, cruelties, and inanity now 
fallen putrid, rotting inevitably towards annihilation; to 
destroy and extinguish all that, having got to know it, and 
to know that it must be rejected for evermore; after which 
the perennial portion, pretty much Friedrich and Voltaire 
so far as I can see, may remain conspicuous and capable of 
being delineated." ^ 

The student, who has become acquainted with the works 
of Gibbon, Macaulay, and Carlyle, will wish to know some- 
thing of the men themselves and this curiosity may be easily 
and delightfully gratified. The autobiographies of Gibbon, 
the Life of Macaulay by Sir George Trevelyan, the History 
of Carlyle's Life by Froude, present the personality of these 
historians in a vivid manner. Gibbon has himself told of 
all his own faults and Froude has omitted none of Carlyle's, 
so that these two books are useful aids in a study of human 
nature, in which respect they are real adjuncts of Boswell's 
Johnson. Gibbon, Carlyle, and Macaulay had an insatiable 
love of reading; in their solitary hours they were seldom 
without books in their hands. Valuable instruction may be 
derived from a study of their lives from their suggestions of 
books, helpful in the development of a historian. They 
knew how to employ their odd moments, and Gibbon and 
Macaulay were adepts in the art of desultory reading. Sainte- 

1 Letters of Jane Carlyle, II, 3L ^ Proude's Carlyle, IV, 125. 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 65 

Beuve makes a plea for desultory reading in instancing 
Tocqueville's lack of it, so that he failed to illustrate and 
animate his pages with its fruits, the result being, in the long 
run, great monotony/ As a relief to the tired brain, without 
a complete loss of time, the reading at hazard, even brows- 
ing in a library, has its place in the equipment of a historian. 
One of the most striking examples of self-education in 
literature is Carlyle's seven years, from the age of thirty-two 
to thirty-nine, passed at Craigenputtock where his native in- 
clination was enforced by his physical surroundings. Craigen- 
puttock, wrote Froude, is 'Hhe dreariest spot in all the Brit- 
ish dominions. The nearest cottage is more than a mile from 
it ; the elevation, 700 feet above the sea, stunts the trees and 
limits the garden produce to the hardiest vegetables. The 
house is gaunt and hungry-looking." ^ The place realized 
Tennyson's words, '^0, the dreary, dreary moorland." 
Here Carlyle read books, gave himself over to silent medita- 
tion, and wrote for his bread, although a man who possessed 
an adequate income could not have been more independent 
in thought than he was, or more averse to writing to the 
order of editors of reviews and magazines. With no out- 
side distractions, books were his companions as well as 
his friends. As you read Froude's intimate biography, it 
comes upon you, as you consider Carlyle's life in London, 
what a tremendous intellectual stride he had made while 
living in this dreary solitude of Craigenputtock. It was 
there that he continued his development under the intellec- 
tual influence of Goethe, wrote " Sartor Resartus " and con- 
ceived the idea of writing the story of the French Revolution. 
Those seven years, as you trace their influence during the 
rest of his life, will ever be a tribute to the concentrated, 
bookish labors of bookish men. 

> Causeries du Lundi, XV, 95. ' Froude, II, 19. 



66 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

It is often said that some practical experience in life is 
necessary for the training of a historian ; that only thus can 
he arrive at a knowledge of human nature and become a 
judge of character; that, while the theory is occasionally 
advanced that history is a series of movements which may 
be described without taking individuals into account, as a 
matter of fact, one cannot go far on this hypothesis without 
running up against the truth that movements have motors 
and the motors are men. Hence we are to believe the 
dictum that the historian needs that knowledge of men 
which is to be obtained only by practical dealings with them. 
It is true that Gibbon's service in the Hampshire militia 
and his membership in the House of Commons were of bene- 
fit to the historian of the Roman Empire. Grote's business 
life, Macaulay's administrative work in India, and the par- 
liamentary experience of both were undoubtedly of value to 
their work as historians, but there are excellent historians 
who have never had any such training. Carlyle is an ex- 
ample, and Samuel R. Gardiner is another. Curiously 
enough, Gardiner, who was a pure product of the university 
and the library, has expressed sounder judgments on many 
of the prominent men of the seventeenth century than Ma- 
caulay. I am not aware that there is in historical literature 
any other such striking contrast as this, for it is difficult to 
draw the line closely between the historian and the man of 
affairs, but Gardiner's example is strengthened in other his- 
torians' lives sufficiently to warrant the statement that the 
historian need not be a man of the world. Books are written 
by men and treat of the thoughts and actions of men and 
a good study may be made of human character without going 
beyond the walls of a library. 

Drawing upon my individual experience again I feel that 
the two authors who have helped me most in this study of 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 67 

human character are Shakespeare and Homer. I do not 
mean that in the modern world we meet Hamlet, lago, Mac- 
beth, and Shy lock, but when we perceive ''the native hue of 
resolution sickHed o'er with the pale cast of thought," when 
we come in contact with the treachery of a seeming friend, 
with unholy ambition and insensate greed, we are better 
able to interpret them on the page of history from having 
grasped the lessons of Shakespeare to mankind. A constant 
reading of Shakespeare will show us unchanging passions 
and feelings ; and we need not make literal contrasts, as did 
the British matron who remarked of ''Antony and Cleo- 
patra" that it was "so unlike the home life of our beloved 
queen." Bernard Shaw, who has said much in detraction 
of Shakespeare, writes in one of his admiring moods, "that 
the imaginary scenes and people he has created become more 
real to us than our actual life — at least until our knowledge 
and grip of actual life begins to deepen and glow beyond 
the common. When I was twenty," Shaw continues, "I 
knew everybody in Shakespeare from Hamlet to Abhorson, 
much more intimately than I knew my living contempo- 
raries; and to this day, if the name of Pistol or Polonius 
catches my eye in a newspaper, I turn to the passage with 
curiosity." ^ 

Homer's character of Ulysses is a link between the ancient 
and the modern world. One feels that Ulysses would be at 
home in the twentieth century and would adapt himself to 
the conditions of modern political life. Perhaps, indeed, he 
would have preferred to his militant age our industrial one 
where prizes are often won by craft and persuasive eloquence 
rather than by strength of arm. The story of Ulysses is a 
signal lesson in the study of human character, and receives 
a luminous commentary in Shakespeare's adaptation of it. 
' Dramatic Opinions, II, 53. 



68 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

The advice which Ulysses gives to Achilles * is a piece of 
worldly wisdom and may well be acted on by those who 
desire advancement in life and are little scrupulous in regard 
to means. The first part of Goethe's "Faust" is another book 
which has profoundly affected my view of life. I read it 
first when seventeen years old and have continually re-read 
it ; and, while I fail to comprehend it wholly, and, although 
it does not give me the same kind of knowledge of human 
character that I derive from Shakespeare's plays, I carry 
away from it abiding impressions from the contact that it 
affords with one of the greatest of human minds. 

All this counsel of mine, as to the reading of the embryo 
historian is, of course, merely supplementary, and does not 
pretend to be exhaustive. I am assuming that during his 
undergraduate and graduate course the student has been 
advised to read, either wholly or in part, most of the Eng- 
lish, German, and French scientific historians of the past 
fifty years, and that he has become acquainted in a greater 
or less degree with all the eminent American historians. My 
own experience has been that a thorough knowledge of one 
book of an author is better than a superficial acquaintance 
with all of his works. The only book of Francis Parkman's 
which I have read is his ''Montcalm and Wolfe," parts of 
which I have gone over again and again. One chapter, per- 
vaded with the scenery of the place, I have read on Lake 
George, three others more than once at Quebec, and I feel 
that I know Parkman's method as well as if I had skimmed 
all his volumes. But I believe I was careful in my selection, 
for in his own estimation, and in that of the general public, 
''Montcalm and Wolfe" is his best work. So with Motley, 

* " Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back 
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, 
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:" etc. 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 69 

I have read nothing but the ''Dutch Republic," but that I 
have read through twice carefully. I will not say that it is 
the most accurate of his works, but it is probably the most 
interesting and shows his graphic and dashing style at its 
best. An admirer of Stubbs told me that his ''Lectures and 
Addresses on Mediaeval and Modern History" would give me 
a good idea of his scholarship and literary manner and that 
I need not tackle his magnum opus. But those lectures 
gave me a taste for more and, undeterred by the remark of 
still another admirer that nobody ever read his "Consti- 
tutional History" through, I did read one volume with 
interest and profit, and I hope at some future time to read 
the other two. On the other hand, I have read everything 
that Samuel R. Gardiner has written except "What Gun- 
powder Plot Was." Readers differ. There are fast readers 
who have the faculty of getting just what they want out of 
a book in a brief time and they retain the thing which they 
have sought. Assuredly I envy men that power. For my- 
self, I have never found any royal road to learning, have 
been a slow reader, and needed a re-reading, sometimes 
more than one, to acquire any degree of mastery of a book. 
Macaulay used to read his favorite Greek and Latin classics 
over and over again and presumably always with care, but 
modern books he turned off with extraordinary speed. Of 
Buckle's large volume of the "History of Civilization" 
Macaulay wrote in his journal: "I read Buckle's book all 
day, and got to the end, skipping, of course. A man of 
talent and of a good deal of reading, but paradoxical and 
incoherent." ^ John Fiske, I believe, was a slow reader, but 
he had such a remarkable power of concentration that what 
he read once was his own. Of this I can give a notable in- 
stance. At a meeting in Boston a number of years ago of the 

> Trevelyan, II, 388, n. 



70 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, Colonel William 
R. Livermore read a learned and interesting paper on Napo- 
leon's Campaigns in Northern Italy, and a few men, among 
whom were Fiske and John C. Ropes, remained after supper 
to discuss the paper. The discussion went well into details 
and was technical. Fiske had as much to say as any one 
and met the military critics on their own ground, holding 
his own in this interchange of expert opinions. As we re- 
turned to Cambridge together, I expressed my surprise at his 
wide technical knowledge. ''It is all due to one book/' 
he said. "A few summers ago I had occasion to read Sir 
Edward Hamley's 'Operations of War' and for some reason 
or other everything in it seemed to sink into my mind and 
to be there retained, ready for use, as was the case to-night 
with his references to the Northern Italian campaigns." 

Outside of ordinary historical reading, a book occurs to 
me which is well worth a historian's mastery. I am as- 
suming that our hypothetical student has read Goethe's 
"Faust," "Werther," and "Wilhelm Meister," and desires 
to know something of the personality of this great writer. 
He should, therefore, read Eckermann's "Conversations 
with Goethe," in which he will find a body of profitable 
literary criticism, given out in a familiar way by the most 
celebrated man then living. The talks began when he was 
seventy-three and continued until near his death, ten years 
later ; they reveal his maturity of judgment. Greek, Roman, 
German, English, French, Spanish, and Italian authors 
are taken up from time to time and discussed with clearness 
and appreciation, running sometimes to enthusiasm. As a 
guide to the best reading extant up to 1832 I know nothing 
better. Eckermann is inferior as a biographer to Boswell, 
and his book is neither so interesting nor amusing; but 
Goethe was far greater than Johnson, and his talk is cosmo- 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 71 

politan and broad, while Johnson's is apt to be insular and 
narrow. ''One should not study contemporaries and com- 
petitors," Goethe said, ''but the great men of antiquity, 
whose works have for centuries received equal homage and 
consideration. . . . Let us study Moliere, let us study 
Shakespeare, but above all things, the old Greeks and always 
the Greeks." ^ Here is an opinion I like to dwell upon : "He 
who will work aright must never rail, must not trouble him- 
self at all about what is ill done, but only to do well himself. 
For the great point is, not to pull down, but to build up and 
in this humanity finds pure joy." ^ It is well worth our 
while to listen to a man so great as to be free from envy and 
jealousy, but this was a lesson Carlyle could not learn from 
his revered master. It is undoubtedly his broad mind in 
connection with his wide knowledge which induced Sainte- 
Beuve to write that Goethe is "the greatest of modern critics 
and of critics of all time." ^ 

All of the conversations did not run upon literature and 
writers. Although Goethe never visited either Paris or 
London, and resided for a good part of his life in the little 
city of Weimar, he kept abreast of the world's progress 
through books, newspapers, and conversations with visiting 
strangers. No statesman or man of business could have 
had a wider outlook than Goethe, when on February 21, 
1827, he thus spoke: "I should wish to see England in pos- 
session of a canal through the Isthmus of Suez. . . . And 
it may be foreseen that the United States, with its decided 
predilection to the West will, in thirty or forty years, have 
occupied and peopled the large tract of land beyond the 
Rocky Mountains. It may furthermore be foreseen that 
along the whole coast of the Pacific Ocean where nature 
has already formed the most capacious and secure harbors, 

> Eng. trans., 236. ^ Ibid., 115. ^ Nouveaux Lundis, III, 265. 



72 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

important commercial towns will gradually arise, for the 
furtherance of a great intercourse between China and the 
East Indies and the United States. In such a case, it would 
not only be desirable, but almost necessary, that a more 
rapid communication should be maintained between the 
eastern and western shores of North America, both by mer- 
chant ships and men-of-war than has hitherto been possible 
with the tedious, disagreeable, and expensive voyage around 
Cape Horn. ... It is absolutely indispensable for the 
United States to effect a passage from the Gulf of Mexico to 
the Pacific Ocean, and I am certain that they will do it. 
Would that I might live to see it !" ^ 

^'Eckermann's book," wrote Sainte-Beuve, '^is the best 
biography of Goethe ; that of Lewes, for the facts ; that of 
Eckermann, for the portrait from the inside and the physiog- 
nomy. The soul of a great man breathes in it." ^ 

I have had frequent occasion to speak of Sainte-Beuve 
and I cannot recommend our student too strongly to read 
from time to time some of his critical essays. His best work 
is contained in the fifteen volumes of "Causeries du Lundi" 
and in the thirteen volumes of ''Nouveaux Lundis" which 
were articles written for the daily newspapers, the Consti- 
tutionnel, the Moniteur, and the Temps, when, between the 
ages of forty-five and sixty-five, he was at the maturity of 
his powers. Considering the very high quality of the work, 
the quantity is enormous, and makes us call to mind the re- 
mark of Goethe that ''genius and fecundity are very closely 
allied." Excluding Goethe, we may safely, I think, call 
Sainte-Beuve the greatest of modern critics, and there is 
enough of resemblance between historical and literary criti- 
cism to warrant a study by the historian of these remarkable 
essays. ''The root of everything in his criticism," wrote 
' Eng. trans., 222. => Nouveaux Lundis, III, 328. 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 73 

Matthew Arnold, '4s his single-hearted devotion to truth. 
What he called 'fictions' in literature, in politics, in religion, 
were not allowed to influence him." And Sainte-Beuve 
himself has said, ''I am accustomed incessantly to call my 
judgments in question anew and to recast my opinions the 
moment I suspect them to be without validity." ^ The 
writer who conforms to such a high standard is an excellent 
guide for the historian and no one who has made a study of 
these Causeries can help feeling their spirit of candor and 
being inspired to the attempt to realize so high an ideal. 
Sainte-Beuve 's essays deal almost entirely with French 
literature and history, which were the subjects he knew 
best. It is very desirable for us Anglo-Saxons to broaden 
our minds and soften our prejudices by excursions outside 
of our own literature and history, and with Goethe for our 
guide in Germany, we can do no better than to accept Sainte- 
Beuve for France. Brunetiere wrote that the four literary 
men of France in the nineteenth century who had exer- 
cised the most profound influence were Sainte-Beuve, Bal- 
zac, Victor Hugo, and Auguste Comte.^ I have already 
recommended Balzac, who portrays the life of the nineteenth 
century; and Sainte-Beuve, in developing the thought of 
the same period, gives us a history of French literature and 
society. Moreover, his volumes are valuable to one who is 
studying human character by the means of books. ''Sainte- 
Beuve had," wrote Henry James, "two passions which are 
commonly assumed to exclude each other, the passion for 
scholarship and the passion for life. He valued life and 
literature equally for the light they threw on each other; 
to his mind, one implied the other; he was unable to con- 
ceive of them apart." ^ 

Supposing the student to have devoted five years to this 
1 Enc. Brit. ^ Balzac, 309. ^ Brander Matthews, Cent. Mag., 1901. 



74 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

general preparation and to have arrived at the age of thirty, 
which Motley, in similar advice to an aspiring historian, 
fixed as the earliest age at which one should devote himself 
to his special work, he is ready to choose a period and write 
a history, if indeed his period has not already suggested 
itself during his years of general preparation. At all events 
it is doubtless that his own predilection will fix his country 
and epoch and the only counsel I have to offer is to select 
an interesting period. As to this, opinions will differ; but 
I would say for example that the attractive parts of German 
history are the Reformation, the Thirty Years' War, the 
epoch of Frederick the Great, and the unification of Germany 
which we have witnessed in our own day. The French 
Revolution is to me the most striking period in modern 
annals, whilst the history of the Directory is dull, relieved 
only by the exploits of Napoleon; but when Napoleon be- 
comes the chief officer of state, interest revives and we 
follow with unflagging attention the story of this master of 
men, for which there is a superabundance of material, in 
striking contrast with the little that is known about his 
Titanic predecessors, Alexander and Caesar, in the accounts 
of whose careers conjecture must so frequently come to the 
aid of facts to construct a continuous story. The Restora- 
tion and the reign of Louis Philippe would for me be dull 
periods were they not illumined by the novels of Balzac; 
but from the Revolution of 1848 to the fall of the Second 
Empire and the Commune, a wonderful drama was enacted. 
In our own history the Revolutionary War, the framing of 
the Constitution, and Washington's administrations seem 
to me replete with interest which is somewhat lacking for 
the period between Washington and the slavery conflict. 
''As to special history," wrote Motley to the aspiring his- 
torian, ''I should be inclined rather to direct your attention 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 75 

to that of the last three and a half centuries." ^ Discussing 
the subject before the advanced historical students of Har- 
vard a number of years ago, I gave an extension to Motley's 
counsel by saying that ancient history had better be left to 
the Germans. I was fresh from reading Holm's History 
of Greece and was impressed with his vast learning, elabora- 
tion of detail, and exhaustive treatment of every subject 
which seemed to me to require a steady appHcation and pa- 
tience, hardly consonant with the American character. But 
within the past five years Ferrero, an Italian, has demon- 
strated that others besides Germans are equal to the work 
by writing an interesting history of Rome, which intelligent 
men and scholars discuss in the same breath with Momm- 
sen's. Courageously adopting the title '' Grandeur and 
Decadence of Rome" which suggests that of Montesquieu, 
Ferrero has gleaned the well-reaped field from the appear- 
ance of Julius Caesar to the reign of Augustus ^ in a manner 
to attract the attention of the reading public in Italy, 
France, England, and the United States. There is no reason 
why an American should not have done the same. ''All 
history is public property," wrote Motley in the letter pre- 
viously referred to. ''All history may be rewritten and it 
is impossible that with exhaustive research and deep reflec- 
tion you should not be able to produce something new 
and valuable on almost any subject." ^ 

After the student has chosen his period I have little advice 
to offer him beyond what I have previously given in two 
formal addresses before the American Historical Association, 
but a few additional words may be useful. You will evolve 
your own method by practice and by comparison with the 
methods of other historians. "Follow your own star." 

» Letter of April 4, 1864, Harper's Mag., June, 1889. 
2 1 speak of the first four volumes. ^ L.c. 



76 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

If you feel impelled to praise or blame as do the older his- 
torians, if it is forced upon you that your subject demands 
such treatment, proceed fearlessly, so that you do nothing 
for effect, so that you do not sacrifice the least particle of 
truth for a telling statement. If, however, you fall naturally 
into the rigorously judicial method of Gardiner you may 
feel your position sure. It is well, as the scientific his- 
torians warn you, to be suspicious of interesting things, but, 
on the other hand, every interesting incident is not neces- 
sarily untrue. If you have made a conscientious search 
for historical material and use it with scrupulous honesty, 
have no fear that you will transgress any reasonable canon 
of historical writing. 

An obvious question to be put to a historian is. What 
plan do you follow in making notes of your reading ? Lang- 
lois, an experienced teacher and tried scholar, in his intro- 
duction to the ^' Study of History," condemns the natural 
impulse to set them down in notebooks in the order in 
which one's authorities are studied, and says, "Every one 
admits nowadays that it is advisable to collect materials 
on separate cards or slips of paper," ^ arranging them by a 
systematic classification of subjects. This is a case in point 
where writers will, I think, learn best from their own ex- 
perience. I have made my notes mainly in notebooks on 
the plan which Langlois condemns, but by colored pencil- 
marks of emphasis and summary, I keep before me the 
prominent facts which I wish to combine; and I have 
found this, on the whole, better than the card system. For 
I have aimed to study my authorities in a logical succession. 
First I go over the period in some general history, if one is 
to be had ; then I read very carefully my original authori- 
ties in the order of their estimated importance, making 

' p. 103. 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 77 

copious excerpts. Afterwards I skim my second-hand 
materials. Now I maintain that it is logical and natural 
to have the extracts before me in the order of my study. 
When unusually careful and critical treatment has been 
required, I have drawn off my memoranda from the note- 
books to cards, classifying them according to subjects. 
Such a method enables me to digest thoroughly my mate- 
rials, but in the main I find that a frequent re-perusal of my 
notes answers fully as well and is an economy of time. 

Carlyle, in answer to an inquiry regarding his own pro- 
cedure, has gone to the heart of the matter. ^'I go into the 
business," he said, ''with all the intelligence, patience, 
silence, and other gifts and virtues that I have . . . and 
on the whole try to keep the whole matter simmering in the 
living mind and memory rather than laid up in paper bun- 
dles or otherwise laid up in the inert way. For this cer- 
tainly turns out to be a truth ; only what you at last have 
living in your own memory and heart is worth putting down 
to be printed ; this alone has much chance to get into the 
living heart and memory of other men. And here indeed, 
I believe, is the essence of all the rules I have ever been able 
to devise for myself. I have tried various schemes of ar- 
rangement and artificial helps to remembrance," but the 
gist of the matter is, ''to keep the thing you are elaborating 
as much as possible actually in your own living mind ; in 
order that this same mind, as much awake as possible, may 
have a chance to make something of it !" ^ 

The objection may be made to my discourse that I have 
considered our student as possessing the purse of Fortuna- 
tus and have lost sight of Herbert Spencer's doctrine that 
a very important part of education is to fit a man to acquire 
the means of living. I may reply that there are a number 
»NewLetters, II, 11. 



78 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

of Harvard students who will not have to work for their 
bread and whose parents would be glad to have them follow 
the course that I have recommended. It is not too much 
to hope, therefore, that among these there are, to use Hux- 
ley's words, ^'glorious sports of nature" who will not be 
''corrupted by luxury" but will become industrious his- 
torians. To others who are not so fortunately situated, I 
cannot recommend the profession of historian as a means 
of gaining a livelihood. Bancroft and Parkman, who had a 
good deal of popularity, spent more money in the collection 
and copying of documents than they ever received as in- 
come from their histories. A young friend of mine, at the 
outset of his career and with his living in part to be earned, 
went for advice to Carl Schurz, who was very fond of him. 
''What is your aim?" asked Mr. Schurz. "I purpose being 
a historian," was the reply. "Aha!" laughed Schurz, 
"you are adopting an aristocratic profession, one which 
requires a rent-roll." Every aspiring historian has, I sup- 
pose, dreamed of that check of £20,000, which Macaulay 
received as royalty on his history for its sale during the year 
1856,^ but no such dream has since been realized. 

Teaching and writing are allied pursuits. And the teacher 
helps the writer, especially in history, through the necessary 
elaboration and digestion of materials. Much excellent 
history is given to the world by college professors. Law 
and medicine are too exacting professions with too large a 
literature of their own to leave any leisure for historical 
investigation. If one has the opportunity to get a good 
start, or, in the talk of the day, the right sort of a "pull," 
I can recommend business as a means of gaining a com- 
petence which shall enable one to devote one's whole time 
to a favorite pursuit. Grote was a banker until he reached 

» Life, II, 345. 



THE PROFESSION OF HISTORIAN 79 

the age of forty-nine when he retired from the banking house 
and began the composition of the first volume of his history. 
Henry C. Lea was in the active publishing business until he 
was fifty-five, and as I have already frequently referred to 
my own personal experience, I may add that I was immersed 
in business between the ages of twenty-two and thirty- 
seven. After three years of general and special preparation 
I began my writing at forty. The business man has many 
free evenings and many journeys by rail, as well as a summer 
vacation, when devotion to a line of study may constitute 
a valuable recreation. Much may be done in odd hours in 
the way of preparation for historical work, and a business 
life is an excellent school for the study of human character. 



NEWSPAPERS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES 

A paper read before the American Historical Association in Wash- 
ington on December 29, 1908; printed in the Atlantic Monthly, 
May, 1909. 



NEWSPAPERS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES 

The impulse of an American writer in justifying the use 
of newspapers as historical materials is to adopt an apolo- 
getic tone. It is somewhat curious that such should be 
the case, for newspapers satisfy so many canons of histori- 
cal evidence. They are contemporary, and, being written 
without knowledge of the end, cannot bolster any cause 
without making a plain showing of their intent. Their 
object is the relation of daily events; and if their relation is 
colored by honest or dishonest partisanship, this is easily 
discernible by the critic from the internal evidence and 
from an easily acquired knowledge of a few external facts. 
As the journals themselves say, their aim is to print the 
news ; and much of the news is present politics. Moreover, 
the newspaper itself, its news and editorial columns, its 
advertisements, is a graphic picture of society. 

When Aulard, in his illuminating criticism of Taine, writes 
that the journals are a very important source of the history 
of the French Revolution, provided they are revised and 
checked by one another, the statement seems in accordance 
with the canons of historical writing; and when he blames 
Taine for using two journals only and neglecting ten others 
which he names, the impression on the mind is the same as 
if Taine were charged with the neglect of evidence of an- 
other class. One would hardly attempt to justify Taine 
by declaring that all journals are inaccurate, partisan, and 
dishonest, and that the omission was a merit, not a defect. 
Leaving out of account the greater size and diffuseness of 
the modern journal, the dictum of Aulard would seem to 
apply to any period of history. 

83 



84 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Why is it then that some American students fall con- 
sciously or unconsciously into an apologetic tone when they 
attempt to justify the use of newspapers as historical 
sources? I suppose it is because of the attitude of culti- 
vated society to the newspaper of to-day. Society calls the 
ordinary newspaper sensational and unreliable; and, if 
neither, its accounts are so diffuse and badly proportioned 
as to weary the seeker after the facts of any given transac- 
tion. Despite the disfavor into which the American news- 
paper has fallen in certain circles, I suspect that it has only 
exaggerated these defects, and that the journals of different 
democracies have more resemblances than diversities. The 
newspaper that caters to the '' masses" will never suit the 
'' classes," and the necessity for a large circulation induces 
it to furnish the sheet which the greatest number of readers 
desire. 

But this does not concern the historian. He does not 
make his materials. He has to take them as they are. It 
would undoubtedly render his task easier if all men spoke 
and wrote everywhere with accuracy and sincerity; but 
his work would lose much of its interest. Take the news- 
paper for what it is, a hasty gatherer of facts, a hurried 
commentator on the same, and it may well constitute a part 
of historical evidence. 

When, in 1887, I began the critical study of the History 
of the United States from 1850 to 1860, I was struck with the 
paucity of material which would serve the purpose of an 
animated narrative. The main facts were to be had in the 
state papers, the Statutes, the Congressional Globe and docu- 
ments, the records of national conventions and platforms, 
and the tabulated results of elections. But there was much 
less private correspondence than is available for the early 
history of our country; and, compared with the period of 



NEWSPAPERS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES 85 

the Civil War and later, a scarcity of biographies and remi- 
niscences, containing personal letters of high historical 
value. Since I wrote my first two volumes, much new mat- 
ter concerning the decade of 1850 to 1860 has been published. 
The work of the American Historical Association, and of 
many historical societies, the monographs of advanced uni- 
versity students, have thrown light upon this, as they 
have upon other periods, with the result that future delvers 
in this field can hardly be so much struck with the paucity 
of material as I was twenty-one years ago. 

Boy though I was during the decade of 1850 to 1860, 1 had 
a vivid remembrance of the part that the newspaper played 
in politics, and the thought came to me that the best way 
to arrive at the spirit of the times was to steep my mind in 
journalistic material; that there was the secret of living 
over again that decade, as the Abolitionist, the Republican, 
the Whig, and the Democrat had actually lived in it. In 
the critical use of such sources, I was helped by the example 
of von Hoist, who employed them freely in his volumes 
covering the same period, and by the counsel and collabora- 
tion of my friend Edward G. Bourne, whose training was 
in the modern school. For whatever training I had beyond 
that of self came from the mastery, under the guidance of 
teachers, of certain general historians belonging to an epoch 
when power of expression was as much studied as the col- 
lecting and sifting of evidence. 

While considering my materials, I was struck with a 
statement cited by Herbert Spencer as an illustration in his 
" Philosophy of Style " : ''A modern newspaper statement, 
though probably true, if quoted in a book as testimony, 
would be laughed at; but the letter of a court gossip, if 
written some centuries ago, is thought good historical evi- 
dence." At about the same time, I noticed that Motley 



86 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

used as one of his main authorities for the battle of St. 
Quentin the manuscript of an anonymous writer. From 
these two circumstances, it was a logical reflection that 
some historians might make an exaggerated estimate of the 
value of manuscript material because it reposed in dusty 
archives and could be utilized only by severe labor and 
long patience ; and that, imbued with this idea, other his- 
torians for other periods might neglect the newspaper be- 
cause of its ready accessibility. 

These several considerations justified a belief, arrived at 
from my preliminary survey of the field, that the use of news- 
papers as sources for the decade of 1850 to 1860 was desirable. 
At each step of my pretty thorough study of them, I became 
more and more convinced that I was on the right track. I 
found facts in them which I could have found nowhere else. 
The public meeting is a great factor in the political life of 
this decade, and is most fully and graphically reported in 
the press. The newspaper, too, was a vehicle for personal 
accounts of a quasi-confidential nature, of which I can give 
a significant example. In an investigation that Edward 
Bourne made for me during the summer of 1889, he came 
across in the Boston Courier an inside account of the 
Whig convention of 1852, showing, more conclusively than 
I have seen elsewhere, the reason of the failure to unite the 
conservative Whigs, who were apparently in a majority, on 
Webster. From collateral evidence we were convinced 
that it was written by a Massachusetts delegate ; and the 
Springfield Republican, which copied the account, furnished 
a confirmation of it. It was an interesting story, and I 
incorporated it in my narrative. 

I am well aware that Dr. Dryasdust may ask. What of it? 
The report of the convention shows that Webster received 
a very small vote and that Scott was nominated. Why 



NEWSPAPERS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES 87 

waste time and words over the ''might have been"? I can 
plead only the human interest in the great Daniel Webster 
ardently desiring that nomination, Rufiis Choate advo- 
cating it in sublime oratory, the two antislavery delegates 
from Massachusetts refusing their votes for Webster, thus 
preventing a unanimous Massachusetts, and the delegates 
from Maine, among whom was Webster's godson William P. 
Fessenden, coldly refusing their much-needed aid. 

General Scott, having received the nomination, made a 
stumping tour in the autumn through some of the Western 
States. No accurate account of it is possible without the 
newspapers, yet it was esteemed a factor in his overwhelming 
defeat, and the story of it is well worth preserving as data 
for a discussion of the question, Is it wise for a presidential 
candidate to make a stumping tour during his electoral 
campaign ? 

The story of the formation of the Republican party, and 
the rise of the Know-nothings, may possibly be written 
without recourse to the newspapers, but thorough steeping 
in such material cannot fail to add to the animation and ac- 
curacy of the story. In detailed history and biographical 
books, dates, through mistakes of the writer or printer, 
are frequently wrong; and when the date was an affair of 
supreme importance, I have sometimes found a doubt re- 
solved by a reference to the newspaper, which, from its 
strictly contemporary character, cannot in such a matter 
lead one astray. 

I found the newspapers of value in the correction of logical 
assumptions, which frequently appear in American historical 
and biographical books, especially in those written by men 
who bore a part in public affairs. By a logical assumption, 
I mean the statement of a seemingly necessary consequence 
which apparently ought to follow some well-attested fact or 



88 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

condition. A striking instance of this occurred during the 
political campaign of 1856, when '^bleeding Kansas" was a 
thrilling catchword used by the Republicans, whose candi- 
date for president was Fremont. In a year and a half seven 
free-state men had been killed in Kansas by the border 
ruffians, and these outrages, thoroughly ventilated, made 
excellent campaign ammunition. But the Democrats had 
a tu quoque argument which ought to have done much to- 
wards eliminating this question from the canvass. 

On the night of May 24, 1856, five pro-slavery men, living 
on the Pottawatomie Creek, were deliberately and foully 
murdered by John Brown and seven of his disciples; and, 
while this massacre caused profound excitement in Kansas 
and Missouri, it seems to have had no influence east of the 
Mississippi River, although the fact was well attested. A 
Kansas journalist of 1856, writing in 1879, made this logical 
assumption: ''The opposition press both North and South 
took up the damning tale ... of that midnight butchery 
on the Pottawatomie. . . . Whole columns of leaders 
from week to week, with startling headlines, liberally dis- 
tributed capitals, and frightful exclamation points, filled 
all the newspapers." And it was his opinion that, had it 
not been for this massacre, Fremont would have been elected. 

But I could not discover that the massacre had any in- 
fluence on the voters in the pivotal states. I examined, 
or had examined, the files of the New York Journal of 
Commerce, New York Herald, Philadelphia Pennsylvanian, 
Washington Union, and Cleveland Plain Dealer, all Demo- 
cratic papers except the New York Herald, and I was struck 
with the fact that substantially no use was made of the mas- 
sacre as a campaign argument. Yet could anything have 
been more logical than the assumption that the Democrats 
would have been equal to their opportunity and spread far 



NEWSPAPERS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES 89 

and wide such a story? The facts in the case show there- 
fore that cause and effect in actual American history are 
not always the same as the statesman may conceive them 
in his cabinet or the historian in his study. 

In the newspapers of 1850 to 1860 many speeches, and 
many public, and some private, letters of conspicuous public 
men are printed ; these are valuable material for the history 
of the decade, and their use is in entire accordance with 
modern historical canons. 

I have so far considered the press in its character of a 
register of facts ; but it has a further use for historical pur- 
poses, since it is both a representative and guide of public 
sentiment. Kinglake shows that the Times was the potent 
influence which induced England to invade the Crimea; 
Bismarck said in 1877 that the press '^was the cause of the 
last three wars" ; Lord Cromer writes, '^The people of Eng- 
land as represented by the press insisted on sending General 
Gordon to the Soudan, and accordingly to the Soudan he 
was sent;" and it is current talk that the yellow journals 
brought on the Spanish-American War. Giving these state- 
ments due weight, can a historian be justified in neglecting 
the important influence of the press on public opinion ? 

As reflecting and leading popular sentiment during the 
decade of 1850 to 1860, the newspapers of the Northern 
States were potent. I own that many times one needs no 
further index to public sentiment than our frequent elec- 
tions, but in 1854 conditions were peculiar. The repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise had outraged the North and in- 
dicated that a new party must be formed to resist the ex- 
tension of slavery. In the disorganization of the Demo- 
cratic party, and the effacement of the Whig, nowhere may 
the new movement so well be traced as in the news and 
editorial columns of the newspapers, and in the speeches of 



90 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

the Northern leaders, many of these indeed being printed 
nowhere else than in the press. What journals and what 
journalists there were in those days! Greeley and Dana 
of the New York Tribune; Bryant and Bigelow of the 
Evening Post; Raymond of the Times; Webb of the Courier 
and Enquirer; Bowles of the Springfield Republican ; Thur- 
low Weed of the Albany Journal; Schouler of the Cincinnati 
Gazette, — all inspired by their opposition to the spread of 
slavery, wrote with vigor and enthusiasm, representing the 
ideas of men who had burning thoughts without power of 
expression, and guiding others who needed the constant 
iteration of positive opinions to determine their political 
action. 

The main and cross currents which resulted in the for- 
mation of the compact Republican party of 1856 have their 
principal record in the press, and from it, directly or in- 
directly, must the story be told. Unquestionably the news- 
papers had greater influence than in an ordinary time, 
because the question was a moral one and could be concretely 
put. Was slavery right or wrong? If wrong, should not 
its extension be stopjDed ? That was the issue, and all the 
arguments, constitutional and social, turned on that point. 
The greatest single journalistic influence was the New 
York Weekly Tribune which had in 1854 a circulation of 
112,000, and many times that number of readers. These 
readers were of the thorough kind, reading all the news, all 
the printed speeches and addresses, and all the editorials, 
and pondering as they read. The questions were discussed 
in their family circles and with their neighbors, and, as 
differences arose, the Tribune, always at hand, was consulted 
and re-read. There being few popular magazines during 
this decade, the weekly newspaper, in some degree, took 
their place ; and, through this medium, Greeley and his 



NEWSPAPERS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES 91 

able coadjutors spoke to the people of New York and of 
the West, where New England ideas predominated, with a 
power never before or since known in this country. When 
Motley was studying the old letters and documents of the 
sixteenth century in the archives of Brussels, he wrote : 
''It is something to read the real bona fide signs manual of 
such fellows as William of Orange, Count Egmont, Alex- 
ander Farnese, Philip the Second, Cardinal Granville and 
the rest of them. It gives a 'realizing sense,' as the Ameri- 
cans have it." I had somewhat of the same feeling as I 
turned over the pages of the bound volumes of the Weekly 
Tribune, reading the editorials and letters of Greeley, the 
articles of Dana and Hildreth. I could recall enough of 
the time to feel the influence of this political bible, as it was 
termed, and I can emphatically say that if you want to pene- 
trate into the thoughts, feelings, and ground of decision 
of the 1,866,000 men who voted for Lincoln in 1860, you 
should study with care the New York Weekly Tribune. 

One reason why the press was a better representative of 
opinion during the years from 1854 to 1860 than now is 
that there were few, if any, independent journals. The 
party man read his own newspaper and no other ; in that, 
he found an expression of his own views. And the party 
newspaper in the main printed only the speeches and argu- 
ments of its own side. Greeley on one occasion was asked 
by John Russell Young, an associate, for permission to re- 
print a speech of Horatio Seymour in full as a matter of 
news. "Yes," Greeley said, "I will print Seymour's speech 
when the World will print those of our side." 

Before the war, Charleston was one of the most interesting 
cities of the country. It was a small aristocratic community, 
with an air of refinement and distinction. The story of 
Athens proclaims that a large population is not necessary 



92 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

to exercise a powerful influence on the world ; and, after 
the election of Lincoln in 1860, the 40,000 people of Charles- 
ton, or rather the few patricians who controlled its fate and 
that of South Carolina, attracted the attention of the whole 
country. The story of the secession movement of Novem- 
ber and December, 1860, cannot be told with correctness 
and life without frequent references to the Charleston Mer- 
cury and the Charleston Courier. The Mercury especially 
was an index of opinion, and so vivid is its daily chronicle 
of events that the historian is able to put himself in the 
place of those ardent South Carolinians and understand 
their point of view. 

For the history of the Civil War, newspapers are not so 
important. The other material is superabundant, and in 
choosing from the mass of it, the newspapers, so far as affairs 
at the North are concerned, need only be used in special 
cases, and rarely for matters of fact. The accounts of cam- 
paigns and battles, which filled so much of their space, may 
be ignored, as the best possible authorities for these are the 
one hundred and twenty-eight volumes of the United States 
government publication, the ''Official Records of the Union 
and Confederate armies." The faithful study of the cor- 
respondence and the reports in these unique volumes is 
absolutely essential to a comprehension of the war; and it 
is a labor of love. When one thinks of the mass of manu- 
scripts students of certain periods of European history have 
been obliged to read, the American historian is profoundly 
grateful to his government, that at a cost to itself of nearly 
three million dollars,^ it has furnished him this priceless 
material in neatly printed volumes with excellent indexes. 
The serious student can generally procure these volumes 

* $2,858,514, without including the pay of army officers detailed from 
time to time for duty in connection with the work. Official Records, 130, V. 



NEWSPAPERS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES 93 

gratis through the favor of his congressman; or, failing in 
this, may purchase the set at a moderate price, so that he is 
not obliged to go to a public library to consult them. 

Next to manuscript material, the physical and mental 
labor of turning over and reading bound volumes of news- 
papers is the most severe, and I remember my feeling of re- 
lief at being able to divert my attention from what Edward L. 
Pierce called this back-breaking and eye-destroying labor, 
much of it in public libraries, to these convenient books in 
my own private library. A mass of other materials, nota- 
bly Nicolay and Hay's contributions, military narratives, 
biographies, private correspondence, to say nothing of the 
Congressional publications, render the student fairly inde- 
pendent of the newspapers. But I did myself make, for 
certain periods, special researches among them to ascertain 
their influence on public sentiment ; and I also found them 
very useful in my account of the New York draft riots of 
1863. It is true the press ,did not accurately reflect the 
gloom and sickness of heart at the North after the battle 
of Chancellorsville, for the reason that many editors wrote 
for the purpose of keeping up the hopes of their readers. In 
sum, the student may congratulate himself that a continu- 
ous study of the Northern newspapers for the period of the 
Civil War is unnecessary, for their size and diffuseness are 
appalling. 

But what I have said about the press of the North will 
not apply to that of the South. Though strenuous efforts 
have been made, with the diligent cooperation of Southern 
men, to secure the utmost possible amount of Confederate ma- 
terial for the " Official Records," it actually forms only about 
twenty-nine per cent of the whole matter. Other historical 
material is also less copious. For example, there is no record 
of the proceedings of the Confederate Congress, like the 



94 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Globe; there are no reports of committees, like that of the 
Committee on the Conduct of the War ; and even the journal 
of the Congress was kept on loose memoranda, and not 
written up until after the close of the war. With the ex- 
ception of this journal, which has been printed by our gov- 
ernment, and the ^'Statutes at Large," our information of 
the work of the Confederate Congress comes from the news- 
papers and some books of biography and recollections. 
The case of the Southern States was peculiar, because they 
were so long cut off from intercourse with the outer world, 
owing to the efficient Federal blockade ; and the newspaper 
in its local news, editorials, and advertisements, is important 
material for portraying life in the Confederacy during the 
Civil War. Fortunately for the student, the Southern 
newspaper was not the same voluminous issue as the Nor- 
thern, and, if it had not been badly printed, its use would 
be attended with little difficulty. Owing to the scarcity of 
paper, many of the newspapers were gradually reduced in 
size, and in the end were printed on half-sheets, occasionally 
one on brown paper, and another on wall paper; even the 
white paper was frequently coarse, and this, with poor type, 
made the news-sheet itself a daily record of the waning 
fortunes of the Confederacy. 

In the history of Reconstruction the historian may be to 
a large extent independent of the daily newspaper. For 
the work of reconstruction was done by Congress, and 
Congress had the full support of the Northern people, as was 
shown by the continuous large Republican majority which 
was maintained. The debates, the reports, and the acts of 
Congress are essential, and little else is required except what- 
ever private correspondence may be accessible. Congress 
represented public sentiment of the North, and if one de- 
sires newspaper opinion, one may find it in many pithy 



NEWSPAPERS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES 95 

expressions on the floor of the House or the Senate. For the 
congressman and the senator are industrious newspaper 
readers. They are apt to read some able New York journal 
which speaks for their party, and the congressman will 
read the daily and weekly newspapers of his district, and 
the senator the prominent ones of his state which belong 
to his party. 

For the period which covered Reconstruction, from 1865 
to 1877, I used the Nation to a large extent. Its bound 
volumes are convenient to handle in one's own library, and 
its summary of events is useful in itself, and as giving leads 
to the investigation of other material. Frequently its 
editorials have spoken for the sober sense of the people with 
amazing success. As a constant reader of the Nation since 
1866, I have felt the fascination of Godkin, and have been 
consciously on guard against it. I tried not to be led away 
by his incisive statements and sometimes uncharitable 
judgments. But whatever may be thought of his bias, he 
had an honest mind, and was incapable of knowingly making 
a false statement ; and this, with his other qualities, makes 
his journal excellent historical material. After considering 
with great care some friendly criticism, I can truly say that 
I have no apology to make for the extent to which I used 
the Nation. 

Recurring now to the point with which I began this dis- 
cussion, — that learned prejudice against employing news- 
papers as historical material, — I wish to add that, like all 
other evidence, they must be used with care and skepticism, 
as one good authority is undoubtedly better than a dozen 
poor ones. An anecdote I heard years ago has been useful 
to me in weighing different historical evidence. A Penn- 
sylvania-Dutch justice of the peace in one of the interior 
townships of Ohio had a man arraigned before him for 



96 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

stealing a pig. One witness swore that he distinctly saw the 
theft committed ; eight swore that they never saw the ac- 
cused steal a pig, and the verdict was worthy of Dogberry. 
''I discharge the accused/' said the justice. ''The testi- 
mony of eight men is certainly worth more than the testi- 
mony of one." 

Private and confidential correspondence is highly valuable 
historical material, for such utterances are less constrained 
and more sincere than public declarations ; but all men cannot 
be rated alike. Some men have lied as freely in private let- 
ters as in public speeches ; therefore the historian must get at 
the character of the man who has written the letter and the 
influences surrounding him ; these factors must count in any 
satisfactory estimate of his accuracy and truth. The news- 
paper must be subjected to similar tests. For example, to 
test an article or public letter written by Greeley or Godkin, 
the general situation, the surrounding influences, and the 
individual bias must be taken into account, and, when al- 
lowance is made for these circumstances, as well as for the 
public character of the utterance, it may be used for his- 
torical evidence. For the history of the last half of the nine- 
teenth century just such material — the material of the 
fourth estate — must be used. Neglect of it would be like 
neglect of the third estate in the history of France for the 
eighteenth century. 

In the United States we have not, politically speaking, 
either the first or second estates, but we have the third and 
fourth estates with an intimate connection between the two. 
Lord Cromer said, when writing of the sending of Gordon 
to the Soudan, ''Newspaper government has certain dis- 
advantages;" and this he emphasized by quoting a wise 
remark of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, "Anonymous au- 
thorship places the public under the direction of guides who 



NEWSPAPERS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES 97 

have no sense of personal responsibility." Nevertheless 
this newspaper government must be reckoned with. The 
dut)^ of the historian is, not to decide if the newspapers are 
as good as they ought to be, but to measure their influence 
on the present, and to recognize their importance as an 
ample and contemporary record of the past. 



SPEECH PREPARED FOR THE COMMENCEMENT 
DINNER AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 

June 26, 1901 (not delivered). 



SPEECH PREPARED FOR THE COMMENCEMENT 
DINNER AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 

Thanking heartily the governing boards of Harvard 
College for the honor conferred upon me, I shall say, on 
this my first admission to the circle of the Harvard alumni, 
a word on the University as it appears to one whose work 
has lain outside of it. The spirit of the academy in general 
and especially of this University impels men to get to the 
bottom of things, to strive after exact knowledge ; and this 
spirit permeates my own study of history in a remarkable 
degree. "The first of all Gospels is this," said Carlyle, 
''that a lie cannot endure forever." This is the gospel of 
historical students. A part of their work has been to ex- 
pose popular fallacies, and to show up errors which have 
been made through partiality and misguided patriotism or 
because of incomplete investigation. Men of my age are 
obliged to unlearn much. The youthful student of history 
has a distinct advantage over us in that he begins with a 
correct knowledge of the main historical facts. He does 
not for example learn what we all used to learn — that in 
the year 1000 the appearance of a fiery comet caused a panic 
of terror to fall upon Christendom and gave rise to the be- 
lief that the end of the world was at hand. Nor is he taught 
that the followers of Peter the Hermit in the first crusade 
were a number of spiritually minded men and wornen of 
austere morality. It is to the University that we owe it that 
we are seeing things as they are in history, that the fables, 
the fallacies, and the exaggerations are disappearing from 
the books. 

101 



102 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

To regard the past with accuracy and truth is a prepara- 
tion for envisaging the present in the same way. F'or this 
attitude towards the past and the present gained by college 
students of history, and for other reasons which it is not 
necessary here to detail, the man of University training has, 
other things being equal, this advantage over him who lacks 
it, that in life in the world he will get at things more cer- 
tainly and state them more accurately. 

"A university," said Lowell, '4s a place where nothing 
useful is taught." By utility Lowell undoubtedly meant, 
to use the definition which Huxley puts into the average 
Englishman's mouth, ''that by which we get pudding or 
praise or both." A natural reply to the statement of Lowell 
is that great numbers of fathers every year, at a pecuniary 
sacrifice, send their sons to college with the idea of fitting 
them better to earn their living, in obedience to the general 
sentiment of men of this country that there is a money 
value to college training. But the remark of Lowell sug- 
gests another object of the University which, to use the words 
of Huxley again, is "to catch the exceptional people, the glo- 
rious sports of nature, and turn them to account for the 
good of society." This appeals to those imbued with the 
spirit of the academy who frankly acknowledge, in the main, 
our inferiority in the scholarship, which produces great 
works of literature and science, to England, Germany, and 
France, and who with patriotic eagerness wish that we may 
reach the height attained in the older countries. To recur 
to my own study again, should we produce a historian or 
historical writer the equal of Gibbon, Mommsen, Carlyle, 
or Macaulay there would be a feeling of pride in our historical 
genius which would make itself felt at every academical 
and historical gathering. We have something of that sen- 
timent in regard to Francis Parkman. our most original 



SPEECH AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 103 

historian. But it may be that the historical field of Park- 
man is too narrow to awaken a world-wide interest and I 
suspect that the American who will be recognized as the 
equal of Gibbon, Mommsen, Carlyle, or Macaulay must se- 
cure that recognition by writing of some period of European 
history better than the Englishman, German, or Frenchman 
has written of it. He must do it not only in the way of 
scientific history, in which in his field Henry Charles Lea has 
won so much honor for himself and his country, but he 
must bring to bear on his history that quality which 
has made the historical writings of Gibbon, Carlyle, and 
Macaulay literature. 



EDWARD GIBBON 

Lecture read at Harvard University, April 6, 1908, and printed in 
JScribner's Magazine, June, 1909. 



EDWARD GIBBON 

No English or American lover of history visits Rome 
without bending reverent footsteps to the Church of Santa 
Maria in Ara Coeli. Two visits are necessary, as on the first 
you are at once seized by the sacristan, who can conceive 
of no other motive for entering this church on the Capitol 
Hill than to see the miraculous Bambhio — the painted 
doll swaddled in gold and silver tissue and "crusted over 
with magnificent diamonds, emeralds, and rubies." When 
you have heard the tale of what has been called "the oldest 
medical practitioner in Rome," of his miraculous cures, of 
these votive offerings, the imaginary picture you had con- 
jured up is effaced; and it is better to go away and come 
a second time when the sacristan will recognize you and 
leave you to yourself. Then you may open your Gibbon's 
Autobiography and read that it was the subtle influence 
of Italy and Rome that determined the choice, from amongst 
many contemplated subjects of historical writing, of "The 
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." "In my Journal," 
wrote Gibbon, "the place and moment of conception are 
recorded; the 15th of October, 1764, in the close of the 
evening, as I sat musing in the Church of the Franciscan 
friars while they were singing vespers in the Temple of 
Jupiter on the ruins of the Capitol." ^ Gibbon was twenty- 
seven when he made this fruitful visit of eighteen weeks to 
Rome, and his first impression, though often quoted, never 
loses interest, showing, as it does, the enthusiasm of an un- 
emotional man. "At the distance of twenty-five years," 

* Autobiography, 270. 
107 



108 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

he wrote, "I can neither forget nor express the strong emo- 
tions which agitated my mind as I first approached and 
entered the Eternal City. After a sleepless night, I trod 
with a lofty step the ruins of the Forum ; each memorable 
spot where Romulus stood or Cicero spoke or Csesar fell was 
at once present to my eye." 

The admirer of Gibbon as he travels northward will stop 
at Lausanne and visit the hotel which bears the historian's 
name. Twice have I taken luncheon in the garden where 
he wrote the last words of his history; and on a third visit, 
after lunching at another inn, I could not fail to admire the 
penetration of the Swiss concierge. As I alighted, he seemed 
to divine at once the object of my visit, and before I had 
half the words of explanation out of my mouth, he said, 
''Oh, yes. It is this way. But I cannot show you anything 
but a spot." I have quoted from Gibbon's Autobiography 
the expression of his inspiration of twenty-seven; a fitting 
companion-piece is the reflection of the man of fifty. ''I 
have presumed to mark the moment of conception," he 
wrote; "I shall now commemorate the hour of my final 
deliverance. It was on the day, or rather the night, of the 
27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, 
that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house 
in my garden. ... I will not dissemble the first emotions 
of joy on the recovery of my freedom and perhaps the es- 
tablishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, 
and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the 
idea that I had taken my everlasting leave of an old and 
agreeable companion." ^ 

Although the idea was conceived when Gibbon was twenty- 
seven, he was thirty-one before he set himself seriously at 
work to study his material. At thirty-six he began the 

1 Autobiography, 333. 



EDWARD GIBBON 109 

composition, and he was thirty-nine, when, in February, 1776, 
the first quarto volume was pubUshed. The history had an 
immediate success. ''My book," he wrote, ''was on every 
table and almost on every toilette; the historian was 
crowned by the taste or fashion of the day." ^ The first 
edition was exhausted in a few days, a second was printed 
in 1776, and next year a third. The second and third vol- 
umes, which ended the history of the Western empire, 
were published in 1781, and seven years later the three vol- 
umes devoted to the Eastern empire saw the light. The 
last sentence of the work, written in the summer-house at 
Lausanne, is, "It was among the ruins of the Capitol that 
I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and 
exercised near twenty years of my life, and which, however 
inadequate to my own wishes, I finally deliver to the curi- 
osity and candor of the public." 

This is a brief account of one of the greatest historical 
works, if indeed it is not the greatest, ever written. Let us 
imagine an assemblage of English, German, and American 
historical scholars called upon to answer the question. 
Who is the greatest modern historian ? No doubt can exist 
that Gibbon would have a large majority of the voices; and 
I think a like meeting of French and Italian scholars would 
indorse the verdict. "Gibbon's work will never be ex- 
celled," declared Niebuhr.^ "That great master of us all," 
said Freeman, "whose immortal tale none of us can hope to 
displace." ^ Bury, the latest editor of Gibbon, who has 
acutely criticised and carefully weighed "The Decline and 
Fall," concludes "that Gibbon is behind date in many de- 
tails. But in the main things he is still our master, above 
and beyond date." * His work wins plaudits from those 

' Autobiography, 311. ^ Lectures, 763. 

^ Chief Periods European Hist., 75. * Introduction, Ixvii. 



110 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

who believe that history in its highest form should be litera- 
ture and from those who hold that it should be nothing 
more than a scientific narrative. The disciples of Macaulay 
and Carlyle, of Stubbs and Gardiner, would be found voting 
in unison in my imaginary Congress. Gibbon, writes Bury, 
is ''the historian and the man of letters," thus ranking with 
Thucydides and Tacitus. These three are put in the highest 
class, exemplifying that "brilliance of style and accuracy 
of statement are perfectly compatible in an historian." ^ 
Accepting this authoritative classification it is well worth 
while to point out the salient differences between the ancient 
historians and the modern. From Thucydides we have 
twenty-four years of contemporary history of his own coun- 
try. If the whole of the Annals and History of Tacitus 
had come down to us, we should have had eighty-three 
years ; as it is, we actually have forty-one of nearly contem- 
porary history of the Roman Empire. Gibbon's tale covers 
1240 years. He went far beyond his own country for his 
subject, and the date of his termination is three centuries 
before he was born. Milman spoke of "the amplitude, the 
magnificence, and the harmony of Gibbon's design," ^ and 
Bury writes, "If we take into account the vast range of his 
work, his accuracy is amazing." ^ Men have wondered and 
will long wonder at the brain with such a grasp and with 
the power to execute skillfully so mighty a conception. "The 
public is seldom wrong" in their judgment of a book, wrote 
Gibbon in his Autobiography,* and, if that be true at the 
time of actual publication to which Gibbon intended to 
apply the remark, how much truer it is in the long run of 
years. "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" has 
had a life of over one hundred and thirty years, and there is 
no indication that it will not endure as long as any interest 
' Introduction, xxxi. ^ Preface, ix. ^ Introduction, xli. * p. 324. 



EDWARD GIBBON 111 

is taken in the study of history. '^I have never presumed 
to accept a place in the triumvirate of British historians," 
said Gibbon, referring to Hume and Robertson. But in our 
day Hume and Robertson gather dust on the shelf, while 
Gibbon is continually studied by students and read by seri- 
ous men. 

A work covering Gibbon's vast range of time would have 
been impossible for Thucydides or Tacitus. Historical skep- 
ticism had not been fully enough developed. There had 
not been a sufficient sifting and criticism of historical mate- 
rials for a master's work of synthesis. And it is probable 
that Thucydides lacked a model. Tacitus could indeed have 
drawn inspiration from the Greek, while Gibbon had lessons 
from both, showing a profound study of Tacitus and a 
thorough acquaintance with Thucydides. 

If circumstances then made it impossible for the Greek 
or the Roman to attempt history on the grand scale of Gib- 
bon, could Gibbon have written contemporary history with 
accuracy and impartiality equal to his great predecessors? 
This is one of those delightful questions that may be ever 
discussed and never resolved. When twenty-three years 
old, arguing against the desire of his father that he should 
go into Parliament, Gibbon assigned, as one of the reasons, 
that he lacked '^ necessary prejudices of party and of na- 
tion"; ^ and when in middle life he embraced the fortunate 
opportunity of becoming a member of the House of Com- 
mons, he thus summed up his experience, ''The eight sessions 
that I sat in Parliament were a school of civil prudence, the 
first and most essential virtue of an historian." ^ At the 
end of this political career. Gibbon, in a private letter to 
an intimate Swiss friend, gave the reason why he had em- 
braced it. ''I entered Parliament," he said, ''without 

1 Letters, I, 23. ^ Autobiography, 310. 



112 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

patriotism, and without ambition, and I had no other aim 
than to secure the comfortable and honest place of a Lord of 
Trade. I obtained this place at last. I held it for three 
years, from 1779 to 1782, and the net annual product of it, 
being £750 sterling, increased my revenue to the level of 
my wants and desires." ^ His retirement from Parliament 
was followed by ten years' residence at Lausanne, in the first 
four of which he completed his history. A year and a half 
after his removal to Lausanne, he referred, in a letter to his 
closest friend. Lord Sheffield, to the ''abyss of your cursed 
politics," and added: ''I never was a very warm patriot 
and I grow every day a citizen of the world. The scramble 
for power and profit at Westminster or St. James's, and the 
names of Pitt and Fox become less interesting to me than 
those of Csesar and Pompey." ^ 

These expressions would seem to indicate that Gibbon 
might have written contemporary history well and that the 
candor displayed in ''The Decline and Fall" might not have 
been lacking had he written of England in his own time. 
But that subject he never contemplated. When twenty- 
four years old he had however considered a number of Eng- 
lish periods and finally fixed upon Sir Walter Raleigh for 
his hero; but a year later, he wrote in his journal: "I 
shrink with terror from the modern history of England, 
where every character is a problem, and every reader a 
friend or an enemy ; where a writer is supposed to hoist a 
flag of party and is devoted to damnation by the adverse 
faction. ... I must embrace a safer and more extensive 
theme." ^ 

How well Gibbon knew himself! Despite his coolness 
and candor, war and revolution revealed his strong Tory 
prejudices, which he undoubtedly feared might color any 
1 Letters, II, 36. ^ Ihid., 127. ^ Autobiography, 196. 



EDWARD GIBBON 113 

history of England that he might undertake. ''I took my 
seat," in the House of Commons, he wrote, "at the beginning 
of the memorable contest between Great Britain and Amer- 
ica; and supported with many a sincere and silent vote 
the rights though perhaps not the interests of the mother 
country."^ In 1782 he recorded the conclusion: '^The 
American war had once been the favorite of the country, 
the pride of England was irritated by the resistance of her 
colonies, and the executive power was driven by national 
clamor into the most vigorous and coercive measures." 
But it was a fruitless contest. Armies were lost; the debt 
and taxes were increased ; the hostile confederacy of France, 
Spain and Holland was disquieting. As a result the war 
became unpopular and Lord North's ministry fell. Dr. 
Johnson thought that no nation not absolutely conquered 
had declined so much in so short a time. ''We seem to be 
sinking," he said. ''I am afraid of a civil war." Dr. Frank- 
lin, according to Horace Walpole, said ''he would furnish 
Mr. Gibbon with materials for writing the History of the 
Decline of the British Empire." With his country tottering, 
the self-centered but truthful Gibbon could not avoid men- 
tion of his personal loss, due to the fall of his patron, Lord 
North. "I was stripped of a convenient salary," he said, 
"after having enjoyed it about three years." ^ 

The outbreak of the French Revolution intensified his 
conservatism. He was then at Lausanne, the tranquilhty 
of which was broken up by the dissolution of the neighbor- 
ing kingdom. Many Lausanne famihes were terrified by the 
menace of bankruptcy. "This town and country," Gibbon 
wrote, "are crowded with noble exiles, and we sometimes 

* Autobiography, 310. "I am more and more convinced that we have 
both the right and power on our side." Letters, I, 248. 
2 Hill's ed. Gibbon Autobiography, 212, 213, 314. 



114 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

count in an assembly a dozen princesses and duchesses." ^ 
Bitter disputes between them and the triumphant Demo- 
crats disturbed the harmony of social circles. Gibbon 
espoused the cause of the royalists. ''I beg leave to sub- 
scribe my assent to Mr. Burke's creed on the Revolution of 
France," he wrote. ''I admire his eloquence, I approve 
his politics, I adore his chivalry, and I can almost excuse his 
reverence for Church establishments." ^ Thirteen days 
after the massacre of the Swiss guard in the attack on the 
Tuileries in August, 1792, Gibbon wTote to Lord Sheffield, 
''The last revolution of Paris appears to have convinced 
almost everybody of the fatal consequences of Democratical 
principles w^hich lead by a path of flowers into the abyss of 
hell." ^ Gibbon, who was astonished by so few things in 
history, wrote Sainte-Beuve, was amazed by the French 
Revolution.^ Nothing could be more natural. The his- 
torian in his study may consider the fall of dynasties, social 
upheavals, violent revolutions, and the destruction of order 
without a tremor. The things have passed away. The 
events furnish food for his reflections and subjects for his 
pen, while sanguine uprisings at home or in a neighboring 
country in his own time inspire him with terror lest the oft- 
prophesied dissolution of society is at hand. It is the dif- 
ference between the earthquake in your own city and the 
one 3000 miles away. As Gibbon's pocket-nerve was 
sensitive, it may be he was also thinking of the £1300 he 
had invested in 1784 in the new loan of the King of France, 
deeming the French funds as solid as the English.^ 

It is well now to repeat our dictum that Gibbon is the 
greatest modern historian, but, in reasserting this, it is no 
more than fair to cite the opinions of two dissentients — 

» Letters, II, 249. ^ Autobiography, 342. ^ Letters, II, 310. 

* Causeries du Lundi, viii, 469. * Letters, II, 98. 



EDWARD GIBBON 115 

the great literary historians of the nineteenth century, 
Macaulay and Carlyle. ''The truth is," wrote Macaulay 
in his diary, "that I admire no historians much except Herod- 
otus, Thucydides, and Tacitus. . . . There is merit no 
doubt in Hume, Robertson, Voltaire, and Gibbon. Yet it 
is not the thing. I have a conception of history more just, 
I am confident, than theirs." ^ "Gibbon," said Carlyle in 
a public lecture, is "a greater historian than Robertson 
but not so great as Hume. With all his swagger and bom- 
bast, no man ever gave a more futile account of human 
things than he has done of the decline and fall of the Roman 
Empire ; assigning no profound cause for these phenomena, 
nothing but diseased nerves, and all sorts of miserable mo- 
tives, to the actors in them." ^ Carlyle's statement shows 
envious criticism as well as a prejudice in favor of his brother 
Scotchman. It was made in 1838, since when opinion has 
raised Gibbon to the top, for he actually lives while Hume 
is read perfunctorily, if at all. Moreover among the three 
— Gibbon, Macaulay, and Carlyle — whose works are litera- 
ture as well as history, modern criticism has no hesitation in 
awarding the palm to Gibbon. 

Before finally deciding upon his subject Gibbon thought 
of "The History of the Liberty of the Swiss" and "The 
History of the Republic of Florence under the House of 
Medicis," ^ but in the end, as we have seen, he settled on the 
later history of the Roman Empire, showing, as Lowell 
said of Parkman, his genius in the choice of his subject. His 
history really begins with the death of Marcus Aurelius, 
180 A.D., but the main narrative is preceded by three excel- 
lent introductory chapters, covering in Bury's edition eighty- 
two pages. After the completion of his work, he regretted 

' Trevelyan, II, 232, ^ Lectures on the Hist, of Literature, 185. 

^ Autobiography, 196. 



116 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

that he had not begun it at an earlier period. On the first 
page of his own printed copy of his book where he announces 
his design, he has entered this marginal note : ''Should I not 
have given the history of that fortunate period which was in- 
terposed between two iron ages ? Should I not have deduced 
the decline of the Empire from the Civil Wars that ensued 
after the Fall of Nero or even from the tyranny which suc- 
ceeded the reign of Augustus ? Alas ! I should ; but of 
what avail is this tardy knowledge?"^ We may echo 
Gibbon's regret that he had not commenced his history 
with the reign of Tiberius, as, in his necessary use of Tacitus, 
we should have had the running comment of one great his- 
torian on another, of which we have a significant example 
in Gibbon's famous sixteenth chapter wherein he discusses 
Tacitus's account of the persecution of the Christians by 
Nero. With his power of historic divination, he would have 
so absorbed Tacitus and his time that the history would 
almost have seemed a collaboration between two great and 
sympathetic minds. "Tacitus," he wrote, "very frequently 
trusts to the curiosity or reflection of his readers to supply 
those intermediate circumstances and ideas, which, in his 
extreme conciseness, he has thought proper to suppress." ^ 
How Gibbon would have filled those gaps ! Though he 
was seldom swayed by enthusiasm, his admiration of the 
Roman historian fell little short of idolatry. His refer- 
ences in "The Decline and Fall" are many, and some of 
them are here worth recalling to mind. "In their primitive 
state of simplicity and independence," he wrote, "the Ger- 
mans were surveyed by the discerning eye and delineated 
by the masterly pencil of Tacitus, the first of historians who 
applied the science of philosophy to the study of facts." ^ 
Again he speaks of him as "the philosophic historian whose 
» Bury's ed., xxxv. ^ Decline and Fall, Smith's ed., 236. ^ ii,yi ^ j^ 349. 



EDWARD GIBBON 117 

writings will instruct the last generation of mankind." ^ 
And in Chapter XVI he devoted five pages to citation from, 
and comment on, Tacitus, and paid him one of the most 
splendid tributes one historian ever paid another. ''To 
collect, to dispose, and to adorn a series of fourscore years 
in an immortal work, every sentence of which is pregnant 
with the deepest observations and the most lively images, 
was an undertaking sufficient to exercise the genius of Taci- 
tus himself during the greatest part of his life." ^ So much 
for admiration. That, nevertheless, Gibbon could wield the 
critical pen at the expense of the historian he rated so highly, 
is shown by a riiarginal note in his own printed copy of ''The 
Decline and Fall." It will be remembered that Tacitus 
published his History and wrote his Annals during the reign 
of Trajan, whom he undoubtedly respected and admired. 
He referred to the reigns of Nerva and Trajan in suggested 
contrast to that of Domitian as "times when men were 
blessed with the rare privilege of thinking with freedom, and 
uttering what they thought." ^ It fell to both Tacitus and 
Gibbon to speak of the testament of Augustus which, after 
his death, was read in the Senate : and Tacitus wrote, Augus- 
tus "added a recommendation to keep the empire within 
fixed limits," on which he thus commented, "but whether 
from apprehension for its safety, or jealousy of future rivals, 
is uncertain." * Gibbon thus criticised this comment : "Why 
must rational advice be imputed to a base or foolish motive ? 
To what cause, error, malevolence, or flattery, shall I ascribe 
the unworthy alternative? Was the historian dazzled by 
Trajan's conquests?"^ 

The intellectual training of the greatest modern historian 
is a matter of great interest. "From my early youth," 

» Decline and Fall, Smith's ed., II, 35. ^ II, 235. ' History, I, 1. 
* Annals, I, 11. * Buiy's introduction, xxxv. 



118 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

wrote Gibbon in his Autobiography, '^I aspired to the char- 
acter of an historian." ^ He had ''an early and invincible 
love of reading" which he said he "would not exchange for 
the treasures of India" and which led him to a ''vague and 
multifarious" perusal of books. Before he reached the age 
of fifteen he was matriculated at Magdalen College, giving 
this account of his preparation. "I arrived at Oxford," 
he said, "with a stock of erudition that might have puzzled 
a Doctor and a degree of ignorance of which a schoolboy would 
have been ashamed." ^ He did not adapt himself to the 
life or the method of Oxford, and from them apparently 
derived no benefit. "I spent fourteen months at Magdalen 
College," he wrote; "they proved the fourteen months the 
most idle and unprofitable of my whole life." ^ He became 
a Roman Catholic. It was quite characteristic of this 
bookish man that his conversion was effected, not by the 
emotional influence of some proselytizer, but by the read- 
ing of books. English translations of two famous works of 
Bossuet fell into his hands. "I read," he said, "I applauded, 
I believed . . . and I surely fell by a noble hand." Before 
a priest in London, on June 8, 1753, he privately "abjured 
the errors of heresy" and was admitted into the "pale of 
the church." But at that time this was a serious business 
for both priest and proselyte. For the rule laid down by 
Blackstone was this, "Where a person is reconciled to the 
see of Rome, or procures others to be reconciled, the offence 
amounts to High-Treason." This severe rule was not en- 
forced, but there were milder laws under which a priest 
might suffer perpetual imprisonment and the proselyte's 
estate be transferred to his nearest relations. Under such 
laws prosecutions were had and convictions obtained. 
Little wonder was it when Gibbon apprised his father in 

» Autobiography, 193. ^ Ibid., 48, 59. ^ ^^^ 57, 



EDWARD GIBBON 119 

an ''elaborate controversial epistle" of the serious step 
which he had taken, that the elder Gibbon should be as- 
tonished and indignant. In his passion he divulged the 
secret which effectually closed the gates of Magdalen Col- 
lege to his son/ who was packed off to Lausanne and ''settled 
under the roof and tuition" of a Calvinist minister.^ Ed- 
ward Gibbon passed nearly five years at Lausanne, from the 
age of sixteen to that of twenty-one, and they were fruitful 
years for his education. It was almost entirely an affair 
of self-training, as his tutor soon perceived that the student 
had gone beyond the teacher and allowed him to pursue his 
own special bent. After his history was published and his 
fame won, he recorded this opinion: "In the life of every 
man of letters there is an sera, from a level, from whence 
he soars with his own wings to his proper height, and the 
most important part of his education is that which he be- 
stows on himself." ^ This was certainly true in Gibbon's 
case. On his arrival at Lausanne he hardly knew any 
French, but before he returned to England he thought spon- 
taneously in French and understood, spoke, and wrote it 
better than he did his mother tongue.* He read Montes- 
quieu frequently and was struck with his "energy of style 
and boldness of hypothesis." Among the books which 
"may have remotely contributed to form the historian of the 
Roman Empire" were the Provincial Letters of Pascal, 
which he read "with a new pleasure" almost every year. 
From them he said, "I learned to manage the weapon of 
grave and temperate irony, even on subjects of ecclesiastical 
solemnity." As one thinks of his chapters in "The Decline 
and Fall" on Julian, one is interested to know that during 
this period he was introduced to the life and times of this 

» Autobiography, 86 et seq.; Hill's ed., 69,291. 'Autobiography, 131. 
3 Ibid., 137. " Ibid., 134. 



120 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Roman emperor by a book written by a French abbe. He 
read Locke, Grotius, and Puffendorf, but unquestionably his 
greatest knowledge, mental discipline, and peculiar mastery 
of his own tongue came from his diligent and systematic 
study of the Latin classics. He read nearly all of the his- 
torians, poets, orators, and philosophers, going over for a sec- 
ond or even a third time Terence, Virgil, Horace, and Taci- 
tus. He mastered Cicero's Orations and Letters so that 
they became ingrained in his mental fiber, and he termed 
these and his other works, "a library of eloquence and 
reason." ''As I read Cicero," he wrote, ''I applauded the 
observation of Quintilian, that every student may judge 
of his own proficiency by the satisfaction which he receives 
from the Roman orator." And again, ''Cicero's epistles 
may in particular afford the models of every form of cor- 
respondence from the careless effusions of tenderness and 
friendship to the well-guarded declaration of discreet and 
dignified resentment." ^ Gibbon never mastered Greek as 
he did Latin; and Dr. Smith, one of his editors, points 
out where he has fallen into three errors from the use of 
the French or Latin translation of Procopius instead of 
consulting the original.^ Indeed he himself has disclosed 
one defect of self-training. Referring to his youthful resi- 
dence at Lausanne, he wrote: "I worked my way through 
about half the Iliad, and afterwards interpreted alone a 
large portion of Xenophon and Herodotus. But my ardor, 
destitute of aid and emulation, was gradually cooled and, 
from the barren task of searching words in a lexicon, I with- 
drew to the free and familiar conversation of Virgil and 
Tacitus." ' 

All things considered, however, it was an excellent training 
for a historian of the Roman Empire. But all except the 
> Autobiography, 139-142. ^ V, lOS, 130, 231. ^ Autobiography, 141. 



EDWARD GIBBON 121 

living knowledge of French he might have had in his ''ele- 
gant apartment in Magdalen College" just as well as in his 
''ill-contrived and ill-furnished small chamber" in "an old 
inconvenient house," situated in a "narrow gloomy street, 
the most unfrequented of an unhandsome town"; ^ and in 
Oxford he would have had the "aid and emulation" of 
which at Lausanne he sadly felt the lack. 

The Calvinist minister, his tutor, was a more useful guide 
for Gibbon in the matter of religion than in his intellectual 
training. Through his efforts and Gibbon's "private re- 
flections," Christmas Day, 1754, one year and a half after 
his arrival at Lausanne, was witness to his reconversion, as 
he then received the sacrament in the Calvinistic Church. 
"The articles of the Romish creed," he said, had "disap- 
peared like a dream"; and he wrote home to his aunt, 
"I am now a good Protestant and am extremely glad of it." ^ 

An intellectual and social experience of value was his 
meeting with Voltaire, who had set up a theater in the 
neighborhood of Lausanne for the performance mainly of 
his own plays. Gibbon seldom failed to procure a ticket to 
these representations. Voltaire played the parts suited to 
his years; his declamation. Gibbon thought, was old- 
fashioned, and "he expressed the enthusiasm of poetry 
rather than the feelings of nature." "The parts of the young 
and fair," he said, "were distorted by Voltaire's fat and 
ugly niece." Despite this criticism, these performances 
fostered a taste for the French theater, to the abatement of 
his idolatry for Shakespeare, which seemed to him to be 
"inculcated from our infancy as the first duty of an Eng- 
lishman." ^ Personally, Voltaire and Gibbon did not get on 
well together. Dr. Hill suggests that Voltaire may have 
slighted the "English youth," and if this is correct. Gibbon 
> Autobiography, 132. ^ jjiu's ed., 89, 293. » Autobiography, 149. 



122 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

was somewhat spiteful to carry the feeling more than thirty 
years. Besides the criticism of the acting, he called Voltaire 
''the envious bard" because it was only with much reluc- 
tance and ill-humor that he permitted the performance of 
Iphigenie of Racine. Nevertheless, Gibbon is impressed 
with the social influence of the great Frenchman. ''The 
wit and philosophy of Voltaire, his table and theatre," he 
wrote, "refined in a visible degree the manners of Lausanne, 
and however addicted to study, I enjoyed my share of the 
amusements of society. After the theatrical representa- 
tions, I sometimes supped with the actors : I was now famil- 
iar in some, and acquainted in many, houses ; and my even- 
ings were generally devoted to cards and conversation, 
either in private parties or numerous assemblies." ^ 

Gibbon was twenty-one when he returned to England. 
Dividing his time between London and the country, he 
continued his self-culture. He read English, French, and 
Latin, and took up the study of Greek. "Every day, every 
hour," he wrote, "was agreeably filled"; and "I was never 
less alone than when by myself." ^ He read repeatedly 
Robertson and Hume, and has in the words of Sainte-Beuve 
left a testimony so spirited and so delicately expressed as 
could have come only from a man of taste who appreciated 
Xenophon.^ "The perfect composition, the nervous lan- 
guage," wrote Gibbon, "the well-turned periods of Dr. 
Robertson inflamed me to the ambitious hope that I might 
one day tread in his footsteps; the calm philosophy, the 
careless inimitable beauties of his friend and rival, often 
forced me to close the volume with a mixed sensation of 
delight and despair." ^ He made little progress in London 
society and his solitary evenings were passed with his books, 

1 Autobiography, 149. ^ Ibid., 161. 

^ Causeries du Lundi, VIII, 445. * Autobiography, 167, 



EDWARD GIBBON 123 

but he consoled himself by thinking that he lost nothing by 
a withdrawal from a ''noisy and expensive scene of crowds 
without company, and dissipation without pleasure." At 
twenty-four he published his "Essay on the Study of Litera- 
ture/' begun at Lausanne and written entirely in French. 
This possesses no interest for the historical student except to 
know the bare fact of the writing and publication as a step 
in the intellectual development of the historian. Sainte- 
Beuve in his two essays on Gibbon devoted three pages to 
an abstract and criticism of it, perhaps because it had a 
greater success in France than in England ; and his opin- 
ion of Gibbon's language is interesting. ''The French," 
Sainte-Beuve wrote, "is that of one who has read Mon- 
tesquieu much and imitates him ; it is correct, but artificial 
French."^ 

Then followed two and a half years' service in the Hamp- 
shire militia. But he did not neglect his reading. He 
mastered Homer, whom he termed "the Bible of the an- 
cients," and in the militia he acquired "a just and indelible 
knowledge" of what he called "the first of languages." 
And his love for Latin abided also: "On every march, in 
every journey, Horace was always in my pocket and often 
in my hand." ^ Practical knowledge he absorbed almost 
insensibly. "The daily occupations of the militia," he wrote, 
"introduced me to the science of Tactics" and led to the 
study of "the precepts of Polybius and Caesar." In this 
connection occurs the remark which admirers of Gibbon 
will never tire of citing: "A familiar view of the discipline 
and evolutions of a modern battalion gave me a clearer 
notion of the Phalanx and the Legion ; and the Captain of 
the Hampshire Grenadiers (the reader may smile) has not 
been useless to the historian of the decline and fall of the 

^ Causeries du Lundi, VIII, 440. ^ Autobiography, Hill's ed., 142. 



124 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Roman Empire." ^ The grand tour followed his militia 
service. Three and a half months in Paris, and a revisit to 
Lausanne preceded the year that he passed in Italy. Of 
the conception of the History of the Decline and Fall, dur- 
ing his stay in Rome, I have already spoken. 

On his return to England, contemplating '^the decline 
and fall of Rome at an awful distance," he began, in col- 
laboration with the Swiss Deyverdun, his bosom friend, a 
history of Switzerland written in French. During the win- 
ter of 1767, the first book of it was submitted to a literary 
society of foreigners in London. As the author was un- 
known the strictures were free and the verdict unfavorable. 
Gibbon was present at the meeting and related that ''the 
momentary sensation was painful," but, on cooler reflection, 
he agreed with his judges and intended to consign his manu- 
script to the flames. But this, as Lord Sheffield, his literary 
executor and first editor, shows conclusively, he neglected 
to do.^ This essay of Gibbon's possesses interest for us, 
inasmuch as David Hume read it, and wrote to Gibbon a 
friendly letter, in which he said: ''I have perused your 
manuscript with great pleasure and satisfaction. I have 
only one objection, derived from the language in which it 
is written. Why do you compose in French, and carry 
faggots into the wood, as Horace says with regard to Ro- 
mans who wrote in Greek?" ^ This critical query of Hume 
must have profoundly influenced Gibbon. Next year he 
began to work seriously on ''The Decline and Fall" and 
five years later began the composition of it in English. It 
does not appear that he had any idea of writing his magnum 
opus in French. 

In this rambling discourse, in which I have purposely 
avoided relating the life of Gibbon in anything like a 

» Autobiography, 258. ^ m^ ^ 277. ^ n^i^. 



EDWARD GIBBON 125 

chronological order, we return again and again to the great 
History. And it could not well be otherwise. For if 
Edward Gibbon could not have proudly said, I am the au- 
thor of ''six volumes in quartos" ^ he would have had no 
interest for us. Dr. Hill writes, ''For one reader who has 
read his 'Decline and Fall,' there are at least a score who 
have read his Autobiography, and who know him, not as 
the great historian, but as a man of a most original and 
interesting nature." ^ But these twenty people would 
never have looked into the Autobiography had it not been 
the life of a great historian; indeed the Autobiography 
would never have been written except to give an account 
of a great life work. "The Decline and Fall," therefore, is 
the thing about which all the other incidents of his life 
revolve. The longer this history is read and studied, the 
greater is the appreciation of it. Dean Milman followed 
Gibbon's track through many portions of his work, and 
read his authorities, ending with a deliberate judgment in 
favor of his "general accuracy." "Many of his seeming 
errors," he wrote, "are almost inevitable from the close 
condensation of his matter." ^ Guizot had three different 
opinions based on three various readings. After the first 
rapid perusal, the dominant feeling was one of interest in a 
narrative, always animated in spite of its extent, always 
clear and limpid in spite of the variety of objects. During 
the second reading, when he examined particularly certain 
points, he was somewhat disappointed; he encountered 
some errors either in the citations or in the facts and es- 
pecially shades and strokes of partiality which led him to a 
comparatively rigorous judgment. In the ensuing com- 
plete third reading, the first impression, doubtless corrected 
by the second, but not destroyed, survived and was main- 
> Letters, II, 279. ^ Preface, x. ^ Smith's ed., I, xi. 



126 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

tained ; and with some restrictions and reservations, Guizot 
declared that, concerning that vast and able work, there 
remained with him an appreciation of the immensity of 
research, the variety of knowledge, the sagacious breadth 
and especially that truly philosophical rectitude of a mind 
which judges the past as it would judge the present/ 
Mommsen said in 1894: "Amid all the changes that have 
come over the study of the history of the Roman Empire, in 
spite of all the rush of the new evidence that has poured in 
upon us and almost overwhelmed us, in spite of changes 
which must be made, in spite of alterations of view, or 
alterations even in the aspect of great characters, no one 
would in the future be able to read the history of the Roman 
Empire unless he read, possibly with a fuller knowledge, 
but with the broad views, the clear insight, the strong grasp 
of Edward Gibbon." ' 

It is difficult for an admirer of Gibbon to refrain from 
quoting some of his favorite passages. The opinion of a 
great historian on history always possesses interest. History, 
wrote Gibbon, is ''little more than the register of the crimes, 
follies, and misfortunes of mankind." Again, ''Wars and 
the administration of public affairs are the principal sub- 
jects of history." And the following cannot fail to recall a 
similar thought in Tacitus, "History undertakes to record 
the transactions of the past for the instruction of future 
ages." ^ Two references to religion under the Pagan em- 
pire are always worth repeating. "The various modes of 
worship which prevailed in the Roman world," he wrote, 
"were all considered by the people as equally true; by 
the philosopher as equally false ; and by the magistrate as 
equally useful." "The fashion of incredulity was com- 

> Causeries du Lundi, VIII, 453. ^ London Times, November 16, 1894. 
'Smith's ed., I, 215, 371; II, 230. 



EDWARD GIBBON 127 

municated from the philosopher to the man of pleasure or 
business, from the noble to the plebeian, and from the master 
to the menial slave who waited at his table and who equally 
listened to the freedom of his conversation." ^ Gibbon's 
idea of the happiest period of mankind is interesting and 
characteristic. "li/' he wrote, "a man were called to fix 
the period in the history of the world during which the con- 
dition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, 
he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from 
the death of Domitian to the accession of Com.modus." ^ 
This period was from a.d. 96 to 180, covering the reigns of 
Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aure- 
lius. Professor Carter, in a lecture in Rome in 1907, drew, 
by a modern comparison, a characterization of the first 
three named. When we were studying in Germany, he 
said, we were accustomed to sum up the three emperors, 
William I, Frederick III, and William II, as der greise 
Kaiser, der weise Kaiser, und der reise Kaiser. The char- 
acterizations will fit well Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian. 
Gibbon speaks of the '' restless activity" of Hadrian, whose 
life 'Svas almost a perpetual journey," and who during his 
reign visited every province of his empire.^ 

A casual remark of Gibbon's, ' 'Corruption [is] the most 
infallible symptom of constitutional liberty," * shows the 
sentiment of the eighteenth century. The generality of 
the history becomes specific in a letter to his father, who 
has given him hopes of a seat in Parliament. ''This seat," 
so Edward Gibbon wrote, ''according to the custom of our 
venal country was to be bought, and fifteen hundred pounds 
were mentioned as the price of purchase." ^ 

Gibbon anticipated Captain Mahan. In speaking of a 

' Smith's ed., I, 165; II, 205. ^ jn^., I, 216. "Ibid., I, 144. 

* Ibid., Ill, 78. ' Letters, I, 23. 



128 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

naval battle between the fleet of Justinian and that of the 
Goths in which the galleys of the Eastern empire gained a 
signal victory, he wrote, ^'The Goths affected to depreciate 
an element in which they were unskilled ; but their own 
experience confirmed the truth of a maxim, that the master 
of the sea will always acquire the dominion of the land." ^ 
But Gibbon's anticipation was one of the frequent cases 
where the same idea has occurred to a number of men of 
genius, as doubtless Captain Mahan was not aware of this 
sentence any more than he was of Bacon's and Raleigh's epit- 
omes of the theme which he has so originally and brilliantly 
treated.^ 

No modern historian has been the subject of so much 
critical comment as Gibbon. I do not know how it will 
compare in volume with either of the similar examinations 
of Thucydides and Tacitus; but the criticism is of a dif- 
ferent sort. The only guarantee of the honesty of Tacitus, 
wrote Sainte-Beuve, is Tacitus himself ; ^ and a like remark 
will apply to Thucydides. But a fierce light beats on Gib- 
bon. His voluminous notes furnish the critics the mate- 
rials on which he built his history, which, in the case of 
the ancient historians, must be largely a matter of conjec- 
ture. With all the searching examination of "The Decline 
and Fall," it is surprising how few errors have been found 
and, of the errors which have been noted, how few are really 
important. Guizot, Milman, Dr. Smith, Cotter Morison, 
Bury, and a number of lesser lights have raked his text and 
his notes with few momentous results. We have, writes 
Bury, improved methods over Gibbon and "much new ma- 
terial of various kinds," but "Gibbon's historical sense 
kept him constantly right in dealing with his sources"; 

' Smith's ed., V, 230. = See Mahan's From Sail to Steam, 276. 

3 Causeries du Lundi, I, 153. 



EDWARD GIBBON 129 

and ''in the main things he is still our master." ^ The man 
is generally reflected in his book. That Gibbon has been 
weighed and not found wanting is because he was as honest 
and truthful as any man who ever wrote history. The 
autobiographies and letters exhibit to us a transparent 
man, which indeed some of the personal allusions in the 
history might have foreshadowed. ''I have often fluctuated 
and shall tamely follow the Colbert Ms./' he wrote, where 
the authenticity of a book was in question.^ In another 
case 'Hhe scarcity of facts and the uncertainty of dates" 
opposed his attempt to describe the first invasion of Italy 
by Alaric.^ In the beginning of the famous Chapter 
XLIV which is ''admired by jurists as a brief and brilliant 
exposition of the principles of Roman law," * Gibbon wrote, 
"Attached to no party, interested only for the truth and 
candor of history, and directed by the most temperate 
and skillful guides, I enter with just diffidence on the sub- 
ject of civil law." ^ In speaking of the state of Britain 
between 409 and 449, he said, "I owe it to myself and to 
historic truth to declare that some circumstances in this 
paragraph are founded only on conjecture and analogy." ^ 
Throughout his whole work the scarcity of materials forces 
Gibbon to the frequent use of conjecture, but I believe that 
for the most part his conjectures seem reasonable to the 
critics. Impressed with the correctness of his account of 
the Eastern empire a student of the subject once told me 
that Gibbon certainly possessed the power of wise divina- 
tion. 

Gibbon's striving after precision and accuracy is shown in 
some marginal corrections he made in his own printed copy 
of "The Decline and Fall." On the first page in his first 

» Introduction, xlv, 1, Ixvii. ^ Smith's ed., Ill, 14. « Ihid., IV, 31. 
* Bury, lii. « Smith's ed., V, 258. • Ihid., IV, 132 n. 

K 



130 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

printed edition and as it now stands, he said, ''To deduce 
the most important circumstances of its decHne and fall: 
a revolution which will ever be remembered and is still 
felt by the nations of the earth." For this the following 
is substituted: "To prosecute the decline and fall of the 
empire of Rome : of whose language, religion, and laws the 
impression will be long preserved in our own and the neigh- 
boring countries of Europe." He thus explains the change : 
''Mr. Hume told me that, in correcting his history, he 
always labored to reduce superlatives and soften positives. 
Have Asia and Africa, from Japan to Morocco, any feeling 
or memory of the Roman Empire?" 

On page 6, Bury's edition, the text is, "The praises of 
Alexander, transmitted by a succession of poets and his- 
torians, had kindled a dangerous emulation in the mind of 
Trajan." We can imagine that Gibbon reflected. What 
evidence have I that Trajan had read these poets and his- 
torians? Therefore he made this change: "Late genera- 
tions and far distant climates may impute their calamities 
to the immortal author of the Iliad. The spirit of Alex- 
ander was inflamed by the praises of Achilles ; and succeed- 
ing heroes have been ambitious to tread in the footsteps 
of Alexander. Like him, the Emperor Trajan aspired to 
the conquest of the East." ^ 

The "advertisement" to the first octavo edition pub- 
lished in 1783 is an instance of Gibbon's truthfulness. He 
wrote, "Some alterations and improvements had presented 
themselves to my mind, but I was unwilling to injure or 
offend the purchasers of the preceding editions." Then he 
seems to reflect that this is not quite the whole truth and 
adds, "Perhaps I may stand excused if, amidst the avoca- 
tions of a busy winter, I have preferred the pleasures of 

^ Bury's ed., xxxv, xxxvi. 



EDWARD GIBBON 131 

composition and study to the minute diligence of revising 
a former publication." ^ 

The severest criticism that Gibbon has received is on 
his famous chapters XV and XVI which conclude his 
first volume in the original quarto edition of 1776. We 
may disregard the flood of contemporary criticism from 
certain people who were excited by what they deemed an 
attack on the Christian religion. Dean Milman, who ob- 
jected seriously to much in these chapters, consulted these 
various answers to Gibbon on the first appearance of his 
work with, according to his own confession, little profit.^ 
'^Against his celebrated fifteenth and sixteenth chapters," 
wrote Buckle, ''all the devices of controversy have been 
exhausted ; but the only result has been, that while the 
fame of the historian is untarnished, the attacks of his 
enemies are falling into complete oblivion. The work of 
Gibbon remains; but who is there who feels any interest 
in what was written against him?"^ During the last gen- 
eration, however, criticism has taken another form and scien- 
tific men now do not exactly share Buckle's gleeful opinion. 
Both Bury and Cotter Morison state or imply that well- 
grounded exceptions may be taken to Gibbon's treatment 
of the early Christian church. He ignored some facts ; his 
combination of others, his inferences, his opinions are not 
fair and unprejudiced. A further grave objection may be 
made to the tone of these two chapters : sarcasm pervades 
them and the Gibbon sneer has become an apt charac- 
terization. 

Francis Parkman admitted that he was a reverent ag- 
nostic, and if Gibbon had been a reverent free-thinker these 
two chapters would have been far different in tone. Lecky 

* Smith's ed., I, xxi. 2 Smith's ed., I, xvii. 

* History of Civilization, II, 308 n. 



132 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

regarded the Christian church as a great institution worthy 
of reverence and respect although he stated the central 
thesis of Gibbon with emphasis just as great. Of the con- 
version of the Roman Empire to Christianity, Lecky wrote, 
^'it may be boldly asserted that the assumption of a moral 
or intellectual miracle is utterly gratuitous. Never before 
was a religious transformation so manifestly inevitable." ^ 
Gibbon's sneering tone was a characteristic of his time. 
There existed during the latter part of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, wrote Sir James Mackintosh, ''an unphilosophical 
and indeed fanatical animosity against Christianity." But 
Gibbon's private defense is entitled to consideration as 
placing him in a better light. "The primitive church, which 
I have treated with some freedom," he wrote to Lord Shef- 
field in 1791, ''was itself at that time an innovation, and 
I was attached to the old Pagan establishment." ^ "Had I 
believed," he said in his Autobiography, "that the ma- 
jority of English readers were so fondly attached to the 
name and shadow of Christianity, had I foreseen that the 
pious, the timid, and the prudent would feel, or affect to 
feel, with such exquisite sensibility, I might perhaps have 
softened the two invidious chapters." ^ 

On the other hand Gibbon's treatment of Julian the Apos- 
tate is in accordance with the best modern standard. It 
might have been supposed that a quasi-Pagan, as he avowed 
himself, would have emphasized Julian's virtues and ig- 
nored his weaknesses as did Voltaire, who invested him with 
all the good qualities of Trajan, Cato, and Julius Caesar, with- 
out their defects.* Robertson indeed feared that he might 
fail in this part of the history ; ^ but Gibbon weighed Julian 
in the balance, duly estimating his strength and his weak- 

' Morals, I, 419. ^ Letters, II, 237. ^ Autobiography, 316. 

* Cotter Morison, 118. ^ Sainte-Beuve, 458. 



EDWARD GIBBON 133 

ness, with the result that he has given a clear and just 
account in his best and most dignified style. ^ 

Gibbon's treatment of Theodora, the wife of Justinian, is 
certainly o^Den to objection. Without proper sifting and a 
reasonable skepticism, he has incorporated into his narra- 
tive the questionable account with all its salacious details 
which Procopius gives in his Secret History, Gibbon's 
love of a scandalous tale getting the better of his historical 
criticism. He has not neglected to urge a defense. ''I am 
justified," he wrote, ^'in painting the manners of the times; 
the vices of Theodora form an essential feature in the 
reign and character of Justinian. . . . My English text is 
chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity 
of a learned language." ^ This explanation satisfies neither 
Cotter Morison nor Bury, nor would it hold for a moment as 
a justification of a historian of our own day. Gibbon is 
really so scientific, so much like a late nineteenth-century 
man, that we do right to subject him to our present-day 
rigid tests. 

There has been much discussion about Gibbon's style, 
which we all know is pompous and Latinized. On a long 
reading his rounded and sonorous periods become weari- 
some, and one wishes that occasionally a sentence would 
terminate with a small word, even a preposition. One 
feels as did Dickens after walking for an hour or two about 
the handsome but ''distractingly regular" city of Phila- 
delphia. "I felt," he wrote, 'Hhat I would have given 
the world for a crooked street." ^ Despite the pomposity, 
Gibbon's style is correct, and the exact use of words is a 
marvel. It is rare, I think, that any substitution or change 
of words will improve upon the precision of the text. His 

* Cotter Morison, 120. ^ Autobiography, 337 n. 

^ American Notes, Chap. VII. 



134 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

compression and selection of salient points are remarkable. 
Amid some commonplace philosophy he frequently rises 
to a generalization as brilliant as it is truthful. Then, too, 
one is impressed with the dignity of history ; one feels that 
Gibbon looked upon his work as very serious, and thought 
with Thucydides, '^My history is an everlasting possession, 
not a prize composition which is heard and forgotten." 

To a writer of history few things are more interesting than 
a great historian's autobiographical remarks which relate 
to the composition of his work. ''Had I been more indigent 
or more wealthy," wrote Gibbon in his Autobiography, 
''I should not have possessed the leisure or the perseverance 
to prepare and execute my voluminous history." ^ ''Not- 
withstanding the hurry of business and pleasure," he wrote 
from London in 1778, "I steal some moments for the Roman 
Empire." ^ Between the writing of the first three and the 
last three volumes, he took a rest of "near a twelvemonth" 
and gave expression to a thought which may be echoed by 
every studious writer, "Yet in the luxury of freedom, I 
began to wish for the daily task, the active pursuit which 
gave a value to every book and an object to every inquiry." ^ 
Every one who has written a historical book will sympathize 
with the following expression of personal experience as he ap- 
proached the completion of "The Decline and Fall" : "Let no 
man who builds a house or writes a book presume to say when 
he will have finished. When he imagines that he is draw- 
ing near to his journey's end, Alps rise on Alps, and he con- 
tinually finds something to add and something to correct."* 

Plain truthful tales are Gibbon's autobiographies. The 
style is that of the history, and he writes of himself as frankly 
as he does of any of his historical characters. His fail- 

»p. 155. 2 Letters, I, 331. 

s Autobiography, 325. ' Letters, II, 143. 



EDWARD GIBBON 135 

ings — what he has somewhere termed 'Hhe amiable weak- 
nesses of human nature" — are disclosed with the openness 
of a Frenchman. All but one of the ten years between 1783 
and 1793, between the ages of 46 and 56, he passed at Lau- 
sanne. There he completed ''The Decline and Fall," and of 
that period he spent from August, 1787, to July, 1788, in 
England to look after the publication of the last three vol- 
umes. His life in Lausanne was one of study, writing, and 
agreeable society, of which his correspondence with his 
English friends gives an animated account. The two 
things one is most impressed with are his love for books 
and his love for Madeira. ''Though a lover of society," he 
wrote, "my library is the room to which I am most at- 
tached." ^ While getting settled at Lausanne, he com- 
plains that his boxes of books "loiter on the road." ^ And 
then he harps on another string. "Good Madeira," he 
writes, "is now become essential to my health and reputa- 
tion ;" ^ yet again, "If I do not receive a supply of Madeira 
in the course of the summer, I shall be in great shame and 
distress." * His good friend in England, Lord Sheffield, 
regarded his prayer and sent him a hogshead of "best old 
Madeira" and a tierce, containing six dozen bottles of "finest 
Malmsey," and at the same time wrote : 'You will remember 
that a hogshead is on his travels through the torrid zone for 
you. . . . No wine is meliorated to a greater degree by 
keeping than Madeira, and you latterly appeared so raven- 
ous for it, that I must conceive you wish to have a stock." ^ 
Gibbon's devotion to Madeira bore its penalty. At the age 
of forty-eight he sent this account to his stepmother: "I 
was in hopes that my old Enemy the Gout had given over 
the attack, but the Villain, with his ally the winter, con- 

» Letters, II, 130. ' Ibid., 89. ' Ibid., 211. * Ibid., 217. 

^ Ibid., II, 232. 



136 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

vinced me of my error, and about the latter end of March I 
found myself a prisoner in my library and my great chair. 
I attempted twice to rise, he twice knocked me down again 
and kept possession of both my feet and knees longer (I 
must confess) than he ever had done before." ^ Eager to 
finish his history, he lamented that his ''long gout" lost him 
''three months in the spring." Thus as you go through his 
correspondence, you find that orders for Madeira and at- 
tacks of gout alternate with regularity. Gibbon appar- 
ently did not connect the two as cause and effect, as in his 
autobiography he charged his malady to his service in the 
Hampshire militia, when "the daily practice of hard and 
even excessive drinking" had sown in his constitution 
"the seeds of the gout." ^ 

Gibbon has never been a favorite with women, owing 
largely to his account of his early love affair. While at 
Lausanne, he had heard much of "the wit and beauty and 
erudition of Mademoiselle Curchod" and when he first met 
her, he had reached the age of twenty. "I saw and loved," 
he wrote. "I found her learned without pedantry, lively 
in conversation, pure in sentiment, and elegant in manners. 
. . . She listened to the voice of truth and passion. . . . 
At Lausanne I indulged my dream of felicity" ; and indeed 
he appeared to be an ardent lover. "He was seen," said a 
contemporary, "stopping country people near Lausanne 
and demanding at the point of a naked dagger whether a 
more adorable creature existed than Suzanne Curchod." ^ 
On his return to England, however, he soon discovered that 
his father would not hear of this alliance, and he thus related 
the sequence: "After a painful struggle, I yielded to my 
fate. ... I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son." ^ From 

* Letters, II, 129. 2 Ibid., 189. 

3 Ihid., I, 40. •• Autobiography, pp. 151, 239. 



EDWARD GIBBON 137 

England he wrote to Mademoiselle Curchod breaking off the 
engagement. Perhaps it is because of feminine criticism 
that Cotter Morison indulges in an elaborate defense of Gib- 
bon, which indeed hardly seems necessary. Rousseau, who 
was privy to the love affair, said that ''Gibbon was too cold- 
blooded a young man for his taste or for Mademoiselle 
Curchod's happiness." ^ Mademoiselle Curchod a few years 
later married Necker, a rich Paris banker, who under Louis 
XVI held the office of director-general of the finances. She 
was the mother of Madame de Stael, was a leader of the 
literary society in Paris and, despite the troublous times, 
must have led a happy life. One delightful aspect of the 
story is the warm friendship that existed between Madame 
Necker and Edward Gibbon. This began less than a year 
after her marriage. ''The Curchod (Madame Necker) I 
saw at Paris," he wrote to his friend Holroyd. "She was 
very fond of me and the husband particularly civil. Could 
they insult me more cruelly? Ask me every evening to 
supper ; go to bed, and leave me alone with his wife — 
what an impertinent security !" ^ 

If women read the Correspondence as they do the Auto- 
biography, I think that their aversion to the great historian 
would be increased by these confiding words to his step- 
mother, written when he was forty-nine: "The habits of 
female conversation have sometimes tempted me to acquire 
the piece of furniture, a wife, and could I unite in a single 
Woman the virtues and accomplishments of half a dozen 

> Letters, 1,41. 

2 Letters, I, 8L In 1790 Madame de Stael, then at Coppet, wrote: 
"Nous poss6dons dans ce ch&teau M. Gibbon, I'ancien amoreux de nia 
mere, celui qui voulait I'^pouser. Quand je le vois, je me demande si 
je serais n6e de son union avec ma mfere : je me reponds que non et qu'il 
suffisait de mon pfere seul pour que je vinsse au monde." — Hill's ed., 107, 
n. 2. 



138 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

of my acquaintance, I would instantly pay my addresses 
to the Constellation." ^ 

I have always been impressed with Gibbon's pride at 
being the author of '^six volumes in quartos" ; but as nearly 
all histories now are published in octavo, I had not a distinct 
idea of the appearance of a quarto volume until the prepara- 
tion of this essay led me to look at different editions of Gib- 
bon in the Boston Athenaeum. There I found the quartos, 
the first volume of which is the third edition, published in 
1777 [it will be remembered that the original publication 
of the first volume was in February, 1776]. The volume 
is 11;|- inches long by 9 inches wide and is much heavier than 
our very heavy octavo volumes. With this volume in my 
hand I could appreciate the remark of the Duke of Glouces- 
ter when Gibbon brought him the second volume of the 
''Decline and Fall." Laying the quarto on the table he 
said, ''Another d — d thick square book! Always scribble, 
scribble, scribble ! Eh ! Mr. Gibbon ? " ' 

During my researches at the Athenaeum, I found an octavo 
edition, the first volume of which was published in 1791, 
and on the cover was written, "Given to the Athenaeum by 
Charles Cabot. Received December 10, 1807." This was 
the year of the foundation of the Athenaeum. On the quarto 
of 1777 there was no indication, but the scholarly cataloguer 
informed me that it was probably also received in 1807. 
Three later editions than these two are in this library, the 
last of which is Bury's of 1900 to which I have constantly 
referred. Meditating in the quiet alcove, with the two 
early editions of Gibbon before me, I found an answer to 
the comment of H. G. Wells in his book "The Future in 
America" which I confess had somewhat irritated me. 
Thus wrote Wells: "Frankly I grieve over Boston as a 
' Letters, II, 143. ^ Birkbeck Hill's ed., 127. 



EDWARD GIBBON 139 

great waste of leisure and energy, as a frittering away of 
moral and intellectual possibilities. We give too much to 
the past. . . . We are obsessed by the scholastic prestige 
of mere knowledge and genteel remoteness." ^ Pondering 
this iconoclastic utterance, how delightful it is to light upon 
evidence in the way of well-worn volumes that, since 1807, 
men and women here have been carefully reading Gibbon, 
who, as Dean Milman said, ''has bridged the abyss between 
ancient and modern times and connected together the two 
worlds of history." ^ A knowledge of ''The Decline and 
Fall" is a basis for the study of all other history; it is a 
mental discipline, and a training for the problems of modern 
life. These Athenseum readers did not waste their leisure, 
did not give too much to the past. They were supremely 
right to take account of the scholastic prestige of Gibbon, 
and to endeavor to make part of their mental fiber this 
greatest history of modern times. 

I will close with a quotation from the Autobiography, 
which in its sincerity and absolute freedom from literary 
cant will be cherished by all whose desire is to behold "the 
bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of de- 
lightful studies." "I have drawn a high prize in the lottery 
of life," wrote Gibbon. "I am disgusted with the affecta- 
tion of men of letters, who complain that they have re- 
nounced a substance for a shadow and that their fame 
affords a poor compensation for envy, censure, and persecu- 
tion. My own experience at least has taught me a very 
different lesson : twenty happy years have been animated 
by the labor of my history ; and its success has given me a 
name, a rank, a character in the world, to which I should 
not otherwise have been entitled. . . . D'Alembert re- 
lates that as he was walking in the gardens of Sans-souci 

» p. 235. 2 Smith's ed., I, vii. 



140 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

with the King of Prussia, Frederick said to him, 'Do you 
see that old woman, a poor weeder, asleep on that sunny 
bank? She is probably a more happy Being than either of 
us.'" Now the comment of Gibbon: ''The King and the 
Philosopher may speak for themselves ; for my part I do 
not envy the old woman." ^ 

1 Autobiography, 343, 346. 



SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER 

A paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the 
March meeting of 1902, and printed in. the Atlantic Monthly, 
May, 1902. 



SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER 

It is my purpose to say a word of Samuel Rawson Gar- 
diner, the English historian, who died February 23, 1902, 
and who in his research and manner of statement repre- 
sents fitly the scientific school of historical writers. He 
was thorough in his investigation, sparing neither labor nor 
pains to get at the truth. It may well enough be true that 
the designedly untruthful historian, like the undevout as- 
tronomer, is an anomaly, for inaccuracy comes not from 
purpose, but from neglect. Now Gardiner went to the bot- 
tom of things, and was not satisfied until he had compassed 
all the material within his reach. As a matter of course he 
read many languages. Whether his facts were in Spanish, 
Italian, French, German, Dutch, Swedish, or English made 
apparently no difference. Nor did he stop at what was in 
plain language. He read a diary written chiefly in symbols, 
and many letters in cipher. A large part of his material 
was in manuscript, which entailed greater labor than if it 
had been in print. As one reads the prefaces to his various 
volumes and his footnotes, amazement is the word to ex- 
press the feeling that a man could have accomplished so 
much in forty-seven years. One feels that there is no one- 
sided use of any material. The Spanish, the Venetian, the 
French, the Dutch nowhere displaces the English. In 
Froude's Elizabeth one gets the impression that the Si- 
mancas manuscripts furnish a disproportionate basis of the 
narrative ; in Ranke's England, that the story is made up 
too much from the Venetian archives. Gardiner himself 
copied many Simancas manuscripts in Spain, and he studied 

143 



144 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

the archives in Venice, Paris, Brussels, and Rome, but these, 
and all the other great mass of foreign material, are kept 
adjunctive to that found in his own land. My impression 
from a study of his volumes is that more than half of his 
material is in manuscript, but because he has matter which 
no one else had ever used, he does not neglect the printed 
pages open to every one. To form "a judgment on the 
character and aims of Cromwell," he writes, '4t is absolutely 
necessary to take Carlyle's monumental work as a starting 
point;" ^ yet, distrusting Carlyle's printed transcripts, he 
goes back to the original speeches and letters themselves. 
Carlyle, he says, '' amends the text without warning" in 
many places ; these emendations Gardiner corrects, and 
out of the abundance of his learning he stops a moment to 
show how Carlyle has misled the learned Dr. Murray in 
attributing to Cromwell the use of the word ''communica- 
tive" in its modern meaning, when it was on the contrary 
employed in what is now an obsolete sense. ^ 

Gardiner's great work is the History of England from 
1603 to 1656. In the revised editions there are ten volumes 
called the "History of England, from the Accession of 
James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War," and four 
volumes on the Great Civil War. Since this revision he has 
published three volumes on the History of the Common- 
wealth and the Protectorate. He was also the author of a 
number of smaller volumes, a contributor to the Ency- 
clopaedia Britannica and the Dictionary of National Biog- 
raphy, and for ten years editor-in-chief of the English 
Historical Review. 

I know not which is the more remarkable, the learning, 
accuracy, and diligence of the man, or withal his modesty. 

^ History of the Great Civil War, I, viii, 

^ History of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, III, 27. 



SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER 145 

With his great store of knowledge, the very truthfulness of 
his soul impels him to be forward in admitting his own mis- 
takes. Lowell said in 1878 that Darwin was ''almost the 
only perfectly disinterested lover of truth" he had ever 
encountered. Had Lowell known the historian as we know 
him, he would have placed Gardiner upon the same eleva- 
tion. In the preface to the revised ten-volume edition he 
alludes to the ''defects" of his work. "Much material," 
he wrote, "has accumulated since the early volumes were 
published, and my own point of view is not quite the same 
as it was when I started with the first years of James I." ^ 
The most important contribution to this portion of his 
period had been Spedding's edition of Bacon's Letters and 
Life. In a note to page 208 of his second volume he tells 
how Spedding's arguments have caused him to modify 
some of his statements, although the two regard the history 
of the seventeenth century differently. Writing this soon 
after the death of Spedding, to which he refers as "the loss 
of one whose mind was so acute and whose nature was so 
patient and kindly," he adds, "It was a true pleasure to 
have one's statements and arguments exposed to the testing 
fire of his hostile criticism." Having pointed out later some 
inaccuracies in the work of Professor Masson, he accuses 
himself. "I have little doubt," he writes, "that if my work 
were subjected to as careful a revision, it would yield a far 
greater crop of errors." ^ 

Gardiner was born in 1829. Soon after he was twenty- 
six years old he conceived the idea of writing the history of 
England from the accession of James I to the restoration of 
Charles II. It was a noble conception, but his means were 
small. Having married, as his first wife, the youngest 
daughter of Edward Irving, the enthusiastic founder of the 

1 History, I, v. ^ Ibid., IX, viii. 



146 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Catholic Apostolic Church, he became an Irvingite. Be- 
cause he was an Irvingite, his university, — he was a son of 
Oxford, — so it is commonly said, would give him no posi- 
tion whereby he might gain his living. Nevertheless, Gar- 
diner studied and toiled, and in 1863 published two volumes 
entitled " A History of England from the Accession of James 
I to the Disgrace of Chief Justice Coke." Of this work only 
one hundred and forty copies were sold. Still he struggled 
on. In 1869 two volumes called '^Prince Charles and the 
Spanish Marriage" were published and sold five hundred 
copies. Six years later appeared two volumes entitled 
" A History of England under the Duke of Buckingham and 
Charles I." This installment paid expenses, but no profit. 
One is reminded of what Carlyle said about the pecuniary 
rewards of literary men in England : '^Homer's Iliad would 
have brought the author, had he offered it to Mr. Murray 
on the half-profit system, say five-and-twenty guineas. 
The Prophecies of Isaiah would have made a small article 
in a review which . . . could cheerfully enough have re- 
munerated him with a five-pound note." The first book 
from which Gardiner received any money was a little volume 
for the Epochs of Modern History Series on the Thirty 
Years' War, published in 1874. Two more installments of 
the history appearing in 1877 and 1881 made up the first 
edition of what is now our ten-volume history, but in the 
meantime some of the volumes went out of print. It was 
not until 1883, the year of the publication of the revised 
edition, that the value of his labors was generally recognized. 
During this twenty-eight years, from the age of twenty-six 
to fifty-four, Gardiner had his living to earn. He might 
have recalled the remark made, I think, by either Goldsmith 
or Lamb, that the books which will live are not those by 
which we ourselves can live. Therefore Gardiner got his 



SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER 147 

bread by teaching. He became a professor in King's Col- 
lege, London, and he lectured on history for the London 
Society for the Extension of University Teaching, having 
large audiences all over London, and being well appreciated 
in the East End. He wrote schoolbooks on history. 
Finally success came twenty-eight years after his glorious 
conception, twenty years after the publication of his first 
volume. He had had a hard struggle for a living with money 
coming in by driblets. Bread won in such a way is come 
by hard, yet he remained true to his ideal. His potboilers 
were good and honest books ; his brief history on the Thirty 
Years' War has received the praise of scholars. Recognition 
brought him money rewards. In 1882 Mr. Gladstone be- 
stowed upon him a civil list pension of £150 a year. Two 
years later All Souls College, Oxford, elected him to a re- 
search fellowship ; when this expired Merton made him a 
fellow. Academic honors came late. Not until 1884, when 
he was fifty-five, did he take his degree of M.A. Edinburgh 
conferred upon him an LL.D., and Gottingen a Ph.D. ; but 
he was sixty-six when he received the coveted D.C.L. from 
his own university. The year previous Lord Rosebery 
offered him the Regius Professorship of Plistory at Oxford, 
but he declined it because the prosecution of his great 
work required him to be near the British Museum. It is 
worthy of mention that in 1874, nine years before he was 
generally appreciated in England, the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society elected him a corresponding member.^ 

During the latter part of his life Gardiner resided in the 
country near London, whence it took him about an hour to 
reach the British Museum, where he did his work. He 
labored on his history from eleven o'clock to half-past four, 
with an intermission of half an hour for luncheon. He did 
* He was transferred to the roll of honorary members in October, 1896. 



148 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

not dictate to a stenographer, but wrote everything out. 
Totally unaccustomed to collaboration, he never employed 
a secretary or assistant of any kind. In his evenings he 
did no serious labor ; he spent them with his family, attended 
to his correspondence, or read a novel. Thus he wrought 
five hours daily. What a brain, and what a splendid train- 
ing he had given himself to accomplish such results in so 
short a working day ! 

In the preface to his first volume of the "History of the 
Commonwealth," published in 1894, Gardiner said that he 
was ^^ entering upon the third and last stage of a task the 
accomplishment of which seemed to me many years ago to 
be within the bounds of possibility." One more volume 
bringing the history down to the death of Cromwell would 
have completed the work, and then Mr. Charles H. Firth, 
a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, was to take up the story. 
Firth now purposes to begin his narrative with the year 1656. 
Gardiner's mantle has fallen on worthy shoulders. 

Where historical scholars congregate in England and 
America, Gardiner is highly esteemed. But the critics 
must have their day. They cannot attack him for lack of 
diligence and accuracy, which according to Gibbon, the 
master of us all, are the prime requisites of a historian, so 
they assert that he was deficient in literary style, he had no 
dramatic power, his work is not interesting and will not live. 
Gardiner is the product solely of the university and the 
library. You may visualize him at Oxford, in the British 
Museum, or at work in the archives on the Continent, but 
of affairs and of society by personal contact he knew nothing. 
In short, he was not a man of the world, and the histories 
must be written, so these critics aver, by those who have an 
actual knowledge by experience of their fellow-men. It is 
profitable to examine these dicta by the light of concrete 



SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER 149 

examples. Froude saw much of society, and was a man of 
the world. He wrote six volumes on the reign of Elizabeth, 
from which we get the distinct impression that the dominant 
characteristics of Elizabeth were meanness, vacillation, 
selfishness, and cruelty. Gardiner in an introductory chap- 
ter of forty-three pages restores to us the great queen of 
Shakespeare, who brought upon her land "a thousand, 
thousand blessings." She loved her people well, he writes, 
and ruled them wisely. She '' cleared the way for liberty, 
though she understood it not." ^ Elsewhere he speaks of 
''her high spirit and enlightened judgment." ^ The writer 
who has spent his life in the library among dusty archives 
estimates the great ruler more correctly than the man of 
the world. We all know Macaulay, a member of Parlia- 
ment, a member of the Supreme Council of India, a cabinet 
minister, a historian of great merit, a brilliant man of letters. 
In such a one, according to the principles laid down by 
these critics, we should expect to find a supreme judge of 
men. Macaulay in his essays and the first chapter of the 
History painted Wentworth and Laud in the very black- 
est of colors, which ''had burned themselves into the heart 
of the people of England." Gardiner came. Wentworth 
and Laud, he wrote, were controlled by a "noble ambition," 
which was "not stained with personal selfishness or greed." ^ 
"England may well be proud of possessing in Wentworth a 
nobler if a less practical statesman than Richelieu, of the 
type to which the great cardinal belonged." ^ Again Went- 
worth was "the high-minded, masterful statesman, erring 
gravely through defects of temper and knowledge." ^ From 
Macaulay we carry away the impression that Wentworth was 
very wicked and that Cromwell was very good. Gardiner 

1 History, I, 43. ^ Ibid., VIII, 36. ' Ibid., 67. * Ibid., 215. 

6 Ibid., IX, 229. 



150 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

loved Cromwell not less than did Macaulay, but thus he 
speaks of his government: 'SStep by step the government 
of the Commonwealth was compelled ... to rule by 
means which every one of its members would have con- 
demned if they had been employed by Charles or Went- 
worth." Is it not a triumph for the bookish man that in 
his estimate of Wentworth and Laud he has with him the 
consensus of the historical scholars of England? 

What a change there has been in English opinion of Crom- 
well in the last half century ! Unquestionably that is due 
to Carlyle more than to any other one man, but there might 
have been a reaction from the conception of the hero wor- 
shiper had it not been supported and somewhat modified 
by so careful and impartial a student as Gardiner. 

The alteration of sentiment toward Wentworth and Laud 
is principally due to Gardiner, that toward Cromwell is 
due to him in part. These are two of the striking results, 
but they are only two of many things we see differently be- 
cause of the single-minded devotion of this great historian. 
We know the history in England from 1603 to 1656 better 
than we do that of any other period of the world ; and for 
this we are indebted mainly to Samuel Rawson Gardiner. 



WILLIAM E. H. LECKY 

A paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the 
November meeting of 1903. 



WILLIAM E. H. LECKY 

Amazement was the feeling of the reading world on learn- 
ing that the author of the History of Rationalism was 
only twenty-seven, and the writer of the History of Euro- 
pean Morals only thirty-one. The sentiment was that a 
prodigy of learning had appeared, and a perusal of these 
works now renders comprehensible the contemporary as- 
tonishment. The Morals (published in 1869) is the better 
book of the two, and, if I may judge from my own per- 
sonal experience, it may be read with delight when young, 
and re-read with respect and advantage at an age when the 
enthusiasms of youth have given way to the critical attitude 
of experience. Grant all the critics say of it, that the reason- 
ing by which Lecky attempts to demolish the utilitarian 
theory of morals is no longer of value, and that it lacks the 
consistency of either the orthodox or the agnostic, that there 
is no new historical light, and that much of the treatise is 
commonplace, nevertheless the historical illustrations and 
disquisitions, the fresh combination of well-known facts are 
valuable for instruction and for a new point of view. His 
analysis of the causes of the decline and fall of the Roman 
Empire is drawn, of course, from Gibbon, but I have met 
those who prefer the interesting story of Lecky to the ma- 
jestic sweep of the great master. Much less brilliant than 
Buckle's ''History of Civilization," the first volume of which 
appeared twelve years earlier, the Morals has stood better 
the test of time. 

The intellectual biography of so precocious a writer is 
interesting, and fortunately it has been related by Lecky 

153 



154 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

himself. When he entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1856, 
"Mill was in the zenith of his fame and influence"; Hugh 
Miller was attempting to reconcile the recent discoveries 
of geology with the Mosaic cosmogony. ''In poetry," wrote 
Lecky, ''Tennyson and Longfellow reigned, I think with an 
approach to equality which has not continued." In gov- 
ernment the orthodox political economists furnished the 
theory and the Manchester school the practice. All this 
intellectual fermentation affected this inquiring young 
student; but at first Bishop Butler's Analogy and ser- 
mons, which were then much studied at Dublin, had the 
paramount influence. Of the living men. Archbishop 
Whately, then at Dublin, held sway. Other writers whom 
he mastered were Coleridge, Newman, and Emerson, Pascal, 
Bossuet, Rousseau, and Voltaire, Dugald Stewart, and Mill. 
In 1857 Buckle burst upon the world, and proved a stimulus 
to Lecky as well as to most serious historical students. The 
result of these studies, Lecky relates, was his History of 
Rationalism, published in the early part of 1865. 

The claim made by many of Lecky's admirers, that he 
was a philosophic historian, as distinct from literary his- 
torians like Carlyle and Macaulay, and scientific like Stubbs 
and Gardiner, has injured him in the eyes of many historical 
students who believe that if there be such a thing as the 
philosophy of history the narrative ought to carry it natu- 
rally. To interrupt the relation of events or the delinea- 
tion of character with parading of trite reflections or with 
rashly broad generalizations is neither science nor art. 
Lecky has sometimes been condemned by students who, 
revolting at the term "philosophy" in connection with 
history, have failed to read his greatest work, the "History 
of England in the Eighteenth Century." This is a decided 
advance on the History of Morals, and shows honest 



WILLIAM E. H. LECKY 155 

investigation in original material, much of it manuscript, 
and an excellent power of generalization widely different 
from that which exhibits itself in a paltry philosophy. 
These volumes are a real contribution to historical knowl- 
edge. Parts of them which I like often to recur to are the 
account of the ministry of Walpole, the treatment of '^ par- 
liamentary corruption," of the condition of London, and 
of ''national tastes and manners." His Chapter IX, which 
relates the rise of Methodism, has a peculiarly attractive 
swing and go, and his use of anecdote is effective. 

Chapter XX, on the ''Causes of the French Revolution," 
covering one hundred and forty-one pages, is an ambitious 
effort, but it shows a thorough digestion of his material, 
profound reflection, and a lively presentation of his view. 
Mr. Morse Stephens believes that it is idle to attempt to in- 
quire into the causes of this political and social overturn. 
If a historian tells the how, he asserts he should not be asked 
to tell the why. This is an epigrammatic statement of a 
tenet of the scientific historical school of Oxford, but men 
will always be interested in inquiring why the French Revo- 
lution happened, and such chapters as this of Lecky, a blend- 
ing of speculation and narrative, will hold their place. 
These volumes have much well and impartially written 
Irish history, and being published between 1878 and 1890, 
at the time when the Irish question in its various forms 
became acute, they attracted considerable attention from 
the political world. Gladstone was an admirer of Lecky, 
and said in a chat with John Morley : "Lecky has real insight 
into the motives of statesmen. Now Carlyle, so mighty as 
he is in flash and penetration, has no eye for motives. Ma- 
caulay, too, is so caught by a picture, by color, by surface, 
that he is seldom to be counted on for just account of 
motive." The Irish chapters furnished arguments for the 



156 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Liberals, but did not convert Lecky himself to the policy of 
home rule. When Gladstone and his party adopted it, he 
became a Liberal Unionist, and as such was elected in 1895 
a member of the House of Commons by Dublin University. 
In view of the many comments that he was not successful 
in parliamentary life, I may say that the election not only 
came to him unsought, but that he recognized that he was 
too old to adapt himself to the atmosphere of the House of 
Commons ; he accepted the position in the belief which was 
pressed upon him by many friends that he could in Parlia- 
ment be useful to the University. 

Within less than three years have we commemorated in this 
hall three great English historians — Stubbs, Gardiner, and 
Lecky. The one we honor to-day was the most popular of 
the three. Not studied so much at the seats of learning, 
he is better known to journalists, to statesmen, to men of 
affairs, in short to general readers. Even our Society made 
him an honorary member fourteen years before it so honored 
Gardiner, although Gardiner was the older man and two 
volumes of his history had been published before Lecky's 
Rationalism, and two volumes more in the same year as 
the Morals. One year after it was published. Ration- 
alism went into a third edition. Gardiner's first volumes 
sold one hundred and forty copies. It must, however, be 
stated that the Society recognized Gardiner's work as early 
as 1874 by electing him a corresponding member. 

It is difficult to guess how long Lecky will be read. His 
popularity is distinct. He was the rare combination of a 
scholar and a man of the world, made so by his own peculiar 
talent and by lucky opportunities. He was not obliged to 
earn his living. In early life, by intimate personal inter- 
course, he drew intellectual inspiration from Dean Milman, 
and later he learned practical politics through his friendship 



WILLIAM E. H. LECKY 157 

with Lord Russell. He knew well Herbert Spencer, Huxley, 
and Tyndall. In private conversation he was a very in- 
teresting man. His discourse ran on books and on men ; he 
turned from one to the other and mixed up the two with a 
ready familiarity. He went much into London society, and 
though entirely serious and without having, so far as I 
know, a gleam of humor, he was a fluent and entertaining 
talker. 

Mr. Lecky was vitally interested in the affairs of this coun- 
try, and sympathized with the North during our Civil War. 
He once wrote to me: ''I am old enough to remember 
vividly your great war, and was then much with an American 
friend — a very clever lawyer named George Bemis — whom 
I came to know very well at Rome. ... I was myself a 
decided Northerner, but the 'right of revolution' was always 
rather a stumbling block." Talking with Mr. Lecky in 
1895, not long after the judgment of the United States Su- 
preme Court that the income tax was unconstitutional, he 
expressed the opinion that it was a grand decision, evidenc- 
ing a high respect for private property, but in the next 
breath came the question, ''How are you ever to manage 
continuing the payment of those enormous pensions of 
yours?" 

It is not, I think, difficult to explain why Stubbs and 
Gardiner are more precious possessions for students than 
Lecky. Gardiner devoted his life to the seventeenth cen- 
tury. If we may reckon the previous preparation and the 
ceaseless revision, Stubbs devoted a good part of his life to 
the constitutional history from the beginnings of it to Henry 
VII. Lecky's eight volumes on the eighteenth century 
were published in thirteen years. A mastery of such an 
amount of original material as Stubbs and Gardiner mas- 
tered was impossible within that time. Lecky had the 



158 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

faculty of historic divination which compensated to some 
extent for the lack of a more thorough study of the sources. 
Genius stood in the place of painstaking engrossment in a 
single task. 

The last important work of Lecky, '^Democracy and 
Liberty," was a brave undertaking. Many years ago he 
wrote: ''When I was deeply immersed in the 'History of 
England in the Eighteenth Century/ I remember being 
struck by the saying of an old and illustrious friend that he 
could not understand the state of mind of a man who, w^hen 
so many questions of burning and absorbing interest were 
rising around him, could devote the best years of his life to 
the study of a vanished past." Hence the book which con- 
sidered present issues of practical politics and party con- 
troversies, and a result that satisfied no party and hardly 
any faction. It is an interesting question who chose the 
better part, — he or Stubbs and Gardiner — they who de- 
voted themselves entirely to the past or he who made a 
conscientious endeavor to bring to bear his study of history 
upon the questions of the present. 



SIR SPENCER WALPOLE 

A paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the 
November meeting of 1907. 



SIR SPENCER WALPOLE 

Sir Spencer Walpole was an excellent historian and in- 
dustrious writer. His first important work, entitled "The 
History of England from 1815," was published at intervals 
from 1878 to 1886 ; the first installment appeared when he 
was thirty-nine years old. This in six volumes carried the 
history to 1858 in an interesting, accurate, and impartial 
narrative. Four of the five chapters of the first volume are 
entitled ''The Material Condition of England in 1815," 
''Society in England," "Opinion in 1815," "The Last of the 
Ebb Tide," and they are masterly in their description and 
relation. During the Napoleonic wars business was good. 
The development of English manufactures, due largely to 
the introduction of steam as a motive power, was marked. 
"Twenty years of war," he wrote, "had concentrated the 
trade of the world in the British Empire." Wheat was 
dear; in consequence the country gentlemen received high 
rents. The clergy, being largely dependent on tithes, — 
the tenth of the produce, — found their incomes increased 
as the price of corn advanced. But the laboring classes, 
both those engaged in manufactures and agriculture, did 
not share in the general prosperity. Either their wages 
did not rise at all or did not advance commensurately with 
the increase of the cost of living and the decline in the value 
of the currency. Walpole's detailed and thorough treat- 
ment of this subject is historic work of high value. 

In the third volume I was much impressed with his ac- 
count of the Reform Act of 1832. We all have read that 
wonderful story over and over again, but I doubt whether its 

M 161 



162 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

salient points have been better combined and presented 
than in Walpole's chapter. I had not remembered the 
reason of the selection of Lord John Russell to present the 
bill in the House of Commons when he was only Paymaster 
of the Forces, without a seat in the Cabinet. It will, of 
course, be recalled that Lord Grey, the Prime Minister, was 
in the House of Lords, and, not so readily I think, that 
Althorp was Chancellor of the Exchequer and the leader of 
the House of Commons. On Althorp, under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, it would have been incumbent to take charge 
of this highly important measure, which had been agreed 
upon by the Cabinet after counsel with the King. Russell 
was the youngest son of the Duke of Bedford ; and the 
Duke was one of the large territorial magnates and a pro- 
prietor of rotten boroughs. '^A bill recommended by his 
son's authority," wrote Walpole, ''was likely to reassure 
timid or wavering politicians." ''Russell," Walpole con- 
tinued, "told his tale in the plainest language. But the 
tale which he had to tell required no extraordinary language 
to adorn it. The Radicals had not dared to expect, the 
Tories, in their wildest fears, had not apprehended, so com- 
plete a measure. Enthusiasm was visible on one side of 
the House; consternation and dismay on the other. At 
last, when Russell read the list of boroughs which were 
doomed to extinction, the Tories hoped that the complete- 
ness of the measure would insure its defeat. Forgetting 
their fears, they began to be amused and burst into peals of 
derisive laughter" (HI, 208). 

Walpole's next book was the "Life of Lord John Russell," 
two volumes published in 1889. This was undertaken at 
the request of Lady Russell, who placed at his disposal a 
mass of private and official papers and "diaries and letters 
of a much more private nature." She also acceded to his 



SIR SPENCER WALPOLE 163 

request that she was not to see the biography until it was 
ready for pubUcation, so that the whole responsibility of it 
would be Walpole's alone. The Queen gave him access to 
three bound volumes of Russell's letters to herself, and sanc- 
tioned the publication of certain letters of King William IV. 
Walpole wrote the biography in about two years and a half ; 
and this, considering that at the time he held an active office, 
displayed unusual industry. If I may judge the work by a 
careful study of the chapter on ''The American Civil War," 
it is a valuable contribution to political history. 

Passing over three minor publications, we come to Wal- 
pole's ''History of Twenty-five Years," two volumes of 
which were published in 1904. A brief extract from his 
preface is noteworthy, written as it is by a man of keen in- 
telligence, with great power of investigation and continuous 
labor, and possessed of a sound judgment. After a reference 
to his "History of England from 1815," he said : "The time 
has consequently arrived when it ought to be as possible to 
write the History of England from 1857 to 1880, as it was 
twenty years ago to bring down the narrative of that History 
to 1856 or 1857. ... So far as I am able to judge, most of 
the material which is likely to be available for British history 
in the period with which these two volumes are concerned 
[1856-1870] is already accessible. It is not probable that 
much which is wholly new remains unavailable." I read 
carefully these two volumes when they first appeared, and 
found them exceedingly fascinating. Palmerston and Rus- 
sell, Gladstone and Disraeli, are made so real that we follow 
their contests as if we ourselves had a hand in them. A half 
dozen or more years ago an Englishman told me that Palmer- 
ston and Russell were no longer considered of account in 
England. But I do not believe one can rise from reading 
these volumes without being glad of a knowledge of these 



164 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

two men whose patriotism was of a high order. Walpole's 
several characterizations, in a summing up of Pahnerston, 
disphiy his knowledge of men. "Men pronounced Lord 
Melbourne indifferent," he wrote, "Sir Robert Peel cold. 
Lord John Russell uncertain. Lord Aberdeen weak. Lord 
Derby haughty, Mr. Gladstone subtle. Lord Beaconsfield 
unscrupulous. But they had no such epithet for Lord 
Pahnerston. He was as earnest as Lord Melbourne was 
indifferent, as strong as Lord Aberdeen was weak, as honest 
as Lord Beaconsfield was unscrupulous. Sir Robert Peel 
repelled men by his temper; Lord John Russell, by his 
coldness; Lord Derby offended them by his pride; Mr. 
Gladstone distracted them by his subtlety. But Lord 
Pahnerston drew both friends and foes together by the 
warmth of his manners and the excellence of his heart" 
(I, 525). 

^Yalpole's knowledge of continental politics was appar- 
ently thorough. At all events, any one who desires two 
entrancing tales, should read the chapter on "The Union of 
Italy," of which Cavour and Napoleon III are the heroes; 
and the two chapters entitled "The Growth of Prussia and 
the Decline of France" and "The Fall of the Second Em- 
pire." In these two chapters Napoleon III again appears, 
but Bismarck is the hero. Walpole's chapter on "The 
American Civil War" is the writing of a broad-minded, in- 
telligent man, who could look on two sides. 

Of Walpole's last book, "Studies in Biography," pub- 
lished in 1907, I have left myself no time to speak. Those 
who are interested in it should read the review of it in the 
Nation early this year, which awards it high and unusual 
commendation. 

The readers of Walpole's histories may easily detect in 
them a treatment not jiossible from a mere closet student 



SIR SPENCER WALPOLE 165 

of books and manuscripts. A knowledge of the science of 
government and of practical politics is there. For Waipole 
was of a political family. lie was of the same house as the 
great Whig Prime Minister, Sir Robert; and his father was 
Home Secretary in the Lord Derby ministry of 1858, and 
again in 1866, when he had to deal with the famous Hyde 
Park meeting of July 23. On his mother's side he was a 
grandson of Spencer Perceval, the Prime Minister who in 
1812 was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Com- 
mons. Walpole's earliest publication was a biography of 
Perceval. 

And Spencer Waipole himself was a man of affairs. A clerk 
in the War Office in 1858, private secretary to his father in 
1866, next year Inspector of Fisheries, later Lieutenant- 
Governor of the Isle of Man, and from 1893 to 1899 Secre- 
tary to the Post-office. In spite of all this administrative 
work his books show that he was a wide, general reader, 
apart from his special historical studies. He wrote in an 
agreeable literary style, with Macaulay undoubtedly as his 
model, although he was by no means a slavish imitator. 
His '^ History of Twenty-five Years" seems to me to be 
written with a freer hand than the earlier history. He is 
here animated by the spirit rather than the letter of Macau- 
lay. I no longer noticed certain tricks of expression which 
one catches so easily in a study of the great historian, and 
which seem so well to suit Macaulay's own work, but nobody 
else's. 

An article by Waipole on my first four volumes, in the 
Edinburgh Review of January, 1901, led to a correspond- 
ence which resulted in my receiving an invitation last May 
to pass Sunday with him at Hartfield Grove, his Sussex 
country place. We were to meet at Victoria station and 
take an early morning train. Seeing Mr. Frederic Harrison 



166 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

the day previous, I asked for a personal description of his 
friend Walpole in order that I might easily recognize him. 
''Well/' says Harrison, ''perhaps I can guide you. A 
while ago I sat next to a lady during a dinner who took me 
for Walpole and never discovered her mistake until, when she 
addressed me as Sir Spencer, I undeceived her just as the 
ladies were retiring from the table. Now I am the elder by 
eight years and I don't think I look like Walpole, but that 
good lady had another opinion." Walpole and Harrison 
met that Saturday evening at the Academy dinner, and 
Walpole obtained a personal description of myself. This 
caution on both our parts was unnecessary. We were the 
only historians traveling down on the train and could not 
possibly have missed one another. I found him a thor- 
oughly genial man, and after fifteen minutes in the railway 
carriage we were well acquainted. The preface to his 
"History of Twenty-five Years" told that the two volumes 
were the work of five years. I asked him how he was getting 
on with the succeeding volumes. He replied that he had 
done a good deal of work on them, and now that he was no 
longer in an administrative position he could concentrate 
his efforts, and he expected to have the work finished before 
long. I inquired if the prominence of his family in politics 
hampered him at all in writing so nearly contemporary 
history, and he said, "Not a bit." An hour of the railroad 
and a half-hour's drive brought us to his home. It was not 
an ancestral place, but a purchase not many years back. 
An old house had been remodeled with modern improve- 
ments, and comfort and ease were the predominant aspects. 
Sir Spencer proposed a "turn" before luncheon, which 
meant a short walk, and after luncheon we had a real walk. 
I am aware that the English mile and our own are alike 
5280 feet, but I am always impressed with the fact that 



SIR SPENCER WALPOLE 167 

the English mile seems longer, and so I was on this Sunday. 
For after a good two hours' exertion over hills and meadows 
my host told me that we had gone only five miles. Only by 
direct question did I elicit the fact that had he been alone he 
would have done seven miles in the same time. 

There were no other guests, and Lady Walpole, Sir Spen- 
cer, and I had all of the conversation at luncheon and din- 
ner and during the evening. We talked about history and 
literature, English and American politics, and public men. 
He was singularly well informed about our country, although 
he had only made one brief visit and then in an official ca- 
pacity. English expressions of friendship are now so common 
that I will not quote even one of the many scattered through 
his volumes, but he displayed everywhere a candid apprecia- 
tion of our good traits and creditable doings. I was struck 
with his knowledge and love of lyric poetry. Byron, Shel- 
ley, Keats, Tennyson, Longfellow, and Lowell were thor- 
oughly familiar to him. He would repeat some favorite 
passage of Keats, and at once turn to a discussion of the 
administrative details of his work in the post-office. Of 
course the day and evening passed very quickly, — it was 
one of the days to be marked with a white stone, — and 
when I bade Walpole good-by on the Monday morning I 
felt as if I were parting from a warm friend. I found him 
broad-minded, intelligent, sympathetic, affable, and he 
seemed as strong physically as he was sound intellectually. 
His death on Sunday, July 7, of cerebral hemorrhage was 
alike a shock and a grief. 



JOHN RICHARD GREEN 

Address at a gathering of historians on June 5, 1909, to mark the 
placing of a tablet in the inner quadrangle of Jesus College, 
Oxford, to the memory of John Kichard Green. 



JOHN RICHARD GREEN 

I WISH indeed that I had the tongues of men and of angels 
to express the admiration of the reading public of America 
for the History of John Richard Green. I suppose that he 
has had more readers in our country than any other historian 
except Macaulay, and he has shaped the opinions of men who 
read, more than any writers of history except those whom 
John Morley called the great born men of letters, — Gibbon, 
Macaulay, and Carlyle. 

I think it is the earlier volumes rather than the last volume 
of his more extended work which have taken hold of us. Of 
course we thrill at his tribute to Washington, where he has 
summed up our reverence, trust, and faith in him in one 
single sentence which shows true appreciation and deep 
feeling; and it flatters our national vanity, of which we 
have a goodly stock, to read in his fourth volume that the 
creation of the United States was one of the turning points 
in the history of the world. 

No saying is more trite, at any rate to an educated Amer- 
ican audience, than that the development of the English 
nation is one of the most wonderful things, if not the most 
wonderful thing, which history records. That history be- 
fore James I is our own, and, to our general readers, it has 
never been so well presented as in Green's first two volumes. 
The victories of war are our own. It was our ancestors 
who preserved liberty, maintained order, set the train mov- 
ing toward religious toleration, and wrought out that lan- 
guage and literature which we are proud of, as well 
as you. 

171 



172 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

For my own part, I should not have liked to miss reading 
and re-reading the five chapters on Elizabeth in the second 
volume. What eloquence in simply the title of the last, — 
The England of Shakespeare ! And in fact my conception 
of Elizabeth, derived from Shakespeare, is confirmed by 
Green. As I think how much was at stake in the last half 
of the sixteenth century, and how well the troubles were met 
by that great monarch and the wise statesman whom she 
called to her aid, I feel that we could not be what we are, 
had a weak, irresolute sovereign been at the head of the 
state. 

With the power of a master Green manifests what was 
accomplished. At the accession of Elizabeth — ''Never" 
so he wrote — ''had the fortunes of England sunk to a 
lower ebb. The loss of Calais gave France the mastery 
of the Channel. The French King in fact 'bestrode the 
realm, having one foot in Calais, and the other in Scot- 
land.' " 

And at the death of Elizabeth, thus Green tells the story : 
"The danger which had hitherto threatened our national 
existence and our national unity had disappeared : France 
clung to the friendship of England, Spain trembled beneath 
its blows." 

With the wide range of years of his subject, with a grasp 
of an extended period akin to Gibbon's, complete accuracy 
was, of course, not attainable, but Samuel R. Gardiner once 
told me that Green, although sometimes inaccurate in de- 
tails, gave a general impression that was justifiable and 
correct; and that is in substance the published opinion of 
Stubbs. 

Goethe said that in reading Moli^re you perceive that he 
possessed the charm of an amiable nature in habitual contact 
with good society. So we, who had not the advantage of 



JOHN RICHARD GREEN 173 

personal intercourse, divined was the case of Green; and 
when the volume of Letters appeared, we saw that we had 
guessed correctly. But not until then did we know of his 
devotion to his work, and his heroic struggle, which renders 
the story of his short and brilliant career a touching and fas- 
cinating biography of a historian who made his mark upon 
his time. 



EDWARD L. PIERCE 

A paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the 
October meeting of 1897. 



EDWARD L. PIERCE 

I SHALL first speak of Mr. Pierce as an author. His Life 
of Sumner it seems to me is an excellent biography, and 
the third and fourth volumes of it are an important con- 
tribution to the history of our country. Any one who has 
gone through the original material of the period he embraces 
must be struck not only with the picture of Sumner, but 
with the skill of the biographer in the use of his data to pre- 
sent a general historical view. The injunction of Cicero, 
'^ Choose with discretion out of the plenty that lies before 
you," Mr. Pierce observed. To those who know how ex- 
tensive was his reading of books, letters, newspaper files, 
how much he had conversed with the actors in those stirring 
scenes — and who will take into account the mass of mem- 
ories that crowd upon the mind of one who has lived through 
such an era — this biography will seem not too long but 
rather admirable in its relative brevity. In a talk that I had 
with Mr. Pierce I referred to the notice in an English literary 
weekly of his third and fourth volumes which maintained 
that the biography was twice too long, and I took occasion 
to say that in comparison with other American works of 
the kind the criticism seemed unjust. '^ Moreover," I went 
on, ''I think you showed restraint in not making use of much 
of your valuable material, — of the interesting and even 
important unprinted letters of Cobden, the Duke of Argyll, 
and of John Bright." ''Yes," replied Mr. Pierce, with a 
twinkle in his eye, ''I can say with Lord Clive, 'Great 
Heavens, at this moment I stand astonished at my own 
moderation.' " 

N 177 



178 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Any one who has studied pubUc sentiment in this country 
for any period knows how easy it is to generahze from a few 
facts, and yet, if the subject be more thoroughly investi- 
gated, it becomes apparent how unsatisfactory such gener- 
ahzations are apt to be ; not that they are essentially un- 
true, but rather because they express only a part of the truth. 
If a student should ask me in what one book he would find 
the best statement of popular opinion at the North during 
the Civil War, I should say, Read Sumner's letters as cited 
in Mr. Pierce's biography with the author's comments. 
The speeches of Sumner may smell too much of the lamp 
to be admirable, but the off-hand letters written to his Eng- 
lish and to a few American friends during our great struggle 
are worthy of the highest esteem. From his conversations 
with the President, the Cabinet ministers, his fellow-sena- 
tors and congressmen, his newspaper reading, — in short, 
from the many impressions that go to make up the daily 
life of an influential public man, — there has resulted an 
accurate statement of the popular feeling from day to day. 
In spite of his intense desire to have Englishmen of power 
and position espouse the right side, he would not misrepre- 
sent anything by the suppression of facts, any more than he 
would make a misleading statement. In the selection of 
these letters Mr, Pierce has shown a nice discrimination. 

Sumner, whom I take to have been one of the most truth- 
ful of men, was fortunate in having one of the most honest 
of biographers. Mr. Pierce would not, I think, have wit- 
tingly suppressed anything that told against him. I love 
to think of one citation which would never have been made 
by an idolizing biographer, so sharply did it bring out the 
folly of the opinion expressed. Sumner wrote. May 3, 1863 : 
"There is no doubt here about Hooker. He told Judge 
Bates . . . that he 'did not mean to drive the enemy but 



EDWARD L. PIERCE 179 

to bag him.' It is thought he is now doing it." The biog- 
rapher's comment is brief, ''The letter was written on the 
day of Hooker's defeat at Chancellorsville." 

It seems to me that Mr. Pierce was as impartial in his 
writing as is possible for a man who has taken an active part 
in political affairs, who is thoroughly in earnest, and who has 
a positive manner of expression. It is not so difficult as 
some imagine for a student of history whose work is done in 
the library to be impartial, provided he has inherited or ac- 
quired the desire to be fair and honest, and provided he has 
the diligence and patience to go through the mass of evi- 
dence. His historical material will show him that to every 
question there are two sides. But what of the man who has 
been in the heat of the conflict, and who, when the fight was 
on, believed with Sumner that there was no other side? 
If such a man displays candor, how much greater his merit 
than the impartiality of the scholar who shuns political 
activity and has given himself up to a life of speculation ! 

I had the good fortune to have three long conversations 
with the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, the last of which oc- 
curred shortly after the publication of the third and fourth vol- 
umes of the Life of Sumner. ''What," said Mr. Winthrop 
to me, "do you think of the chapter on the Annexation of 
Texas and the Mexican War?" "I think," was my reply, 
"that Mr. Pierce has treated a delicate subject like a gen- 
tleman." "From what I have heard of it," responded Mr. 
Winthrop, earnestly, "and from so much as I have read of it, 
that is also my own opinion." Such a private conversation 
I could, of course, repeat, and, somewhat later the occasion 
presenting itself, I did so to Mr. Pierce. "That is more 
grateful to me," he said, almost with tears in his eyes, "than 
all the praise I have received for these volumes." 

Mr. Pierce had, I think, the historic sense. I consulted 



180 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

him several times on the treatment of historical matters, 
taking care not to trench on questions where, so different 
was our point of view, we could not possibly agree, and I 
always received from him advice that was suggestive, even 
if I did not always follow it to the letter. I sent to him, 
while he was in London, my account of Secretary Cameron's 
report proposing to arm the slaves and of his removal from 
office by President Lincoln. Mr. Pierce thought my in- 
ferences were far-fetched, and wrote: ''I prefer the natural 
explanation. Horace says we must not introduce a god 
into a play unless it is necessary." 

As a friend, he was warm-hearted and true. He brought 
cheer and animation into your house. His talk was fresh; 
his zeal for whatever was uppermost in his mind was con- 
tagious, and he inspired you with enthusiasm. He was not 
good at conversation, in the French sense of the term, for 
he was given to monologue ; but he was never dull. His 
artlessness was charming. He gave you confidences that 
you would have shrunk from hearing out of the mouth of any 
other man, in the fear that you intruded on a privacy where 
you had no right ; but this openness of mind was so natural 
in Mr. Pierce that you listened with concern and sympa- 
thized warmly. He took interest in everything ; he had in- 
finite resources, and until his health began to fail, enjoyed 
life thoroughly. He loved society, conversation, travel ; 
and while he had no passion for books, he listened to you 
attentively while you gave an abstract or criticism of some 
book that was attracting attention. In all intercourse with 
him you felt that you were in a healthy moral atmosphere. 
I never knew a man who went out of his way oftener to do 
good works in which there was absolutely no reward, and 
at a great sacrifice of his time — to him a most precious 
commodity. He was in the true sense of the word a philan- 



EDWARD L. PIERCE 181 

thropist, and yet no one would have approved more heartily 
than he this remark of Emerson: ''The professed philan- 
thropists are an altogether odious set of people, whom one 
would shun as the worst of bores and canters." 

His interest in this Society the published Proceedings will 
show in some measure, but they cannot reflect the tone of 
devotion in which he spoke of it in conversation, or exhibit 
his loyalty to it as set forth in the personal letter. It was 
a real privation that his legislative duties prevented his 
attending these meetings last winter. 

Of Mr. Pierce as a citizen most of you, gentlemen, can 
speak better than I, but it does appear to me an instance of 
rare civic virtue that a man of his age, political experience, 
ability, and mental resources could take pride and pleasure 
in his service in the House of Representatives of his Com- 
monwealth. He was sixty-eight years old, suffering from 
disease, yet in his service last winter he did not miss one 
legislative session nor a day meeting of his committee. His 
love for his town was a mark of local attachment both 
praiseworthy and useful. ''I would rather be moderator 
of the Milton town-meeting," he said, ''than hold any other 
office in the United States." 



JACOB D. COX 

A paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the 
October meeting of 1900. 



JACOB D. COX 

A USEFUL member of the legislature of his state, a general 
in the army during the Civil War, governor of his state, 
Secretary of the Interior in President Grant's Cabinet, a 
member of Congress, the president of a large railroad, 
a writer of books, dean and teacher in a law school, and a 
reviewer of books in the Nation, — such were the varied 
activities of General Cox. All this work was done with 
credit. He bore a prominent part in the battle of Antietam, 
where Ropes speaks of his '^brilliant success"; he was the 
second in command at the battle of Franklin, and bore the 
brunt of the battle. '^ Brigadier-General J. D. Cox," wrote 
Schofield, the commanding general, in his report, ''deserves 
a very large share of credit for the brilliant victory at 
Franklin." 

The governor of the state of Ohio did not then have a 
great opportunity of impressing himself upon the minds of 
the people of his state, but Cox made his mark in the canvass 
for that office. We must call to mind that in the year 1865, 
when he was the Republican candidate for governor. Presi- 
dent Johnson had initiated his policy of reconstruction, but 
had not yet made a formal break with his party. Negro 
suffrage, which only a few had favored during the last year 
of the war, was now advocated by the radical Republicans, 
and the popular sentiment of the party was tending in that 
direction. Cox had been a strong antislavery man before 
the war, a supporter of President Lincoln in his emancipa- 
tion measures, but soon after his nomination for governor he 
wrote a letter to his radical friends at Oberlin in opposition 

185 



186 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

to negro suffrage. ''You assume," he said, ''that the ex- 
tension of the right of suffrage to the blacks, leaving them 
intermixed with the whites, will cure all the trouble. I 
beheve it would rather be Hke the decision in that outer 
darkness of which Milton speaks where 

" ' chaos umpire sits, 
And by decision more embroils the fray.' " 

While governor, he said in a private conversation that he 
had come to the conclusion "that so large bodies of black 
men and white as were in presence in the Southern States 
never could share political power, and that the insistence 
upon it on the part of the colored people would lead to their 
ruin." 

President Grant appointed General Cox Secretary of the 
Interior, and he remained for nearly two years in the 
Cabinet. James Russell Lowell, on a visit to Washington 
in 1870, gave expression to the feehng among independent 
Republicans. "Judge Hoar," he wrote, "and Mr. Cox 
struck me as the only really strong men in the Cabinet." 
This was long before the Civil Service Reform Act had passed 
Congress, but Secretary Cox put the Interior Department 
on a merit basis, and he was ever afterwards an advocate of 
civil service reform by word of mouth and with his pen. 
Differences with the President, in which I feel pretty sure 
that the Secretary was in the right, caused him to resign 
the office. 

Elected to Congress in 1876, he was a useful member for 
one term. He has always been known to men in public life, 
and when President McKinley offered him the position of 
Minister to Spain something over three years ago, it was felt 
that a well-known and capable man had been selected. For 
various reasons he did not accept the appointment, but if he 



JACOB D. COX 187 

had done so, no one could doubt that he would have shown 
tact and judgment in the difficult position. 

As president of the Wabash Railroad, one of the large 
railroads in the West, he gained a name among business 
men, and five or six years ago was offered the place of Rail- 
road Commissioner in New York City. This was practically 
the position of arbitrator between the trunk lines, but he 
was then Dean of the Cincinnati Law School and interested 
in a work which he did not care to relinquish. 

Besides a controversial monograph, he wrote three books 
on military campaigns: ''Atlanta"; "The March to the 
Sea; Franklin and Nashville " ; ''The Battle of Franklin" ; 
and he wrote four excellent chapters for Force's "Life of 
General Sherman." In these he showed qualities of a mili- 
tary historian of a high order. Before his death he had 
finished his Reminiscences, which will be brought out by 
the Scribners this autumn. 

His differences with President Grant while in his Cabinet 
left a wound, and in private conversation he was quite severe 
in his strictures of many of the President's acts, but he never 
let this feeling influence him in the slightest degree in the 
consideration of Grant the General. He had a very high 
idea of Grant's military talents, which he has in many ways 
emphatically stated. 

Since 1874 he had been a constant contributor to the 
literary department of the Nation. In his book reviews 
he showed a fine critical faculty and large general informa- 
tion, and some of his obituary notices — especially those of 
Generals Buell, Grant, Sherman, Joseph E. Johnston, and 
Jefferson Davis — showed that power of impartial character- 
ization which is so great a merit in a historian. He was 
an omnivorous reader of serious books. It was difficult to 
name any noteworthy work of history or biography or any 



188 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

popular book on natural science with which he was not 
acquainted. 

As I saw him two years ago, when he was seventy years 
old, he was in the best of health and vigor, which seemed to 
promise many years of life. He was tall, erect, with a frame 
denoting great physical strength, and he had distinctively 
a military bearing. He was an agreeable companion, an ex- 
cellent talker, a scrupulously honest and truthful man, and 
a gentleman. 



EDWARD GAYLORD BOURNE 

A paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the 
March meeting of 1908. 



EDWARD GAYLORD BOURNE 

When an associate dies who was not yet forty-eight years 
old, whom most of us knew as a strong enduring man, who 
was capable of an immense amount of intellectual work, it 
is a real calamity, — a calamity which in this case History 
mourns, as Edward Gaylord Bourne was an excellent teacher 
and a thorough historical scholar. The physical details of 
any illness are apt to be repulsive, but the malady in Bourne's 
case was somehow so bound up in his life that an inquiry 
into it comes from no morbid curiosity. When ten years 
old he was attacked with tubercular disease of the hip, and 
for some weeks his life was despaired of; but he was saved 
by the loving care of his parents, receiving particular devo- 
tion from his father, who was a Congregational minister in 
charge of a parish in Connecticut. As the left leg had out- 
grown the other. Bourne was obhged to use crutches for 
three years, when his father took him to a specialist in Bos- 
ton, and the result was that he was able to abandon crutches 
and in the end to get about by an appliance to adjust the 
lengths of the different legs, such as his friends were familiar 
with. Despite this disability he developed great physical 
strength, especially in the chest and arms, but his lame- 
ness prevented his accompanying his college companions on 
long tramps, so that the bicycle was for him a most welcome 
invention. He became expert in the use of it, riding on it 
down Pike's Peak at the time of his visit to Colorado ; and 
he performed a similar feat of endurance on another occasion 
when stopping with me at Jefferson in the White Mountains. 
Starting early in the morning, he traveled by rail to the 

191 



192 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

terminus of the mountain railroad, went up Mount Washing- 
ton on the railroad, and rode down the carriage road on his 
wheel to the Glen House, which ought to have been enough 
of fatigue and exertion for one day, but he then had about 
ten miles to make on his bicycle over a somewhat rough 
mountain road to reach Jefferson. Jefferson he did make; 
but not until after midnight. 

During an acquaintance of over nineteen years with 
Bourne, I was always impressed with his physical strength 
and endurance; and I was therefore much surprised to 
learn, in a letter received from him last winter while I was 
in Rome, that his youthful malady had attacked him, that 
he was again on crutches and had been obliged to give up 
his work at Yale. In truth ever since the autumn of 1906 
he has had a painful, hopeless struggle. He has had the 
benefit of all the resources of medicine and surgery, and he 
and his wife were buoyed up by hope until the last ; but as 
the sequel of one of a series of operations death came to his 
relief on February 24. 

Only less remarkable than his struggle for life and physical 
strength was his energy in acquiring an education. The 
sacrifices that parents in New England and the rest of the 
country make in order to send their boys to school and col- 
lege is a common enough circumstance, but not always is the 
return so satisfactory as it was in the case of Edward Bourne, 
and his brother. Edward went to the Norwich Academy, 
where his studious disposition and diligent purpose gained 
him the favor of the principal. Thence to Yale, where he 
attracted the attention of Professor William G. Sumner, 
who became to him a guide and a friend. Until his senior 
year at Yale his favorite studies were Latin and Greek ; and 
his brother, who was in his class, informs me that ever since 
his preparatory school days, it was his custom to read the 



EDWARD GAYLORD BOURNE 193 

whole of any author in hand as well as the part set for the 
class. During recitations he recalls seeing him again and 
again reading ahead in additional books of the author, keep- 
ing at the same time "a finger on the page where the class 
was translating, in order not to be caught off his guard." 
In his senior year at Yale, under the influence of Professor 
Sumner, he became interested in economics and won the 
Cobden medal. After graduation he wrote his first histori- 
cal book, "The History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837," 
published in 1885 in Putnam's "Questions of the Day" 
series. For this and his other graduate work his university 
later conferred upon him the degree of Ph.D. Since I 
have learned the story of his boyhood and youth, it is with 
peculiar appreciation that I read the dedication of this first 
book: "To my Father and Mother." I may add in this 
connection that while pursuing his indefatigable labors for 
the support of his large family, his father's sickness and 
death overtaxed his strength, and the breakdown followed. 

At Yale during his graduate work he won the Foote 
scholarship; he was instructor in history there from 1886 
to 1888, then took a similar position at Adelbert College, 
Cleveland, becoming Professor of History in 1890. This 
post he held until 1895, when he was called to Yale Uni- 
versity as Professor of History, a position that he held at 
the time of his death. 

Besides the doctor's thesis, Bourne published two books, 
the first of which was "Essays in Historical Criticism," one 
of the Yale bicentennial publications, the most notable 
essay in which is that on Marcus Whitman. A paper read 
at the Ann Arbor session of the American Historical meeting 
in Detroit and later published in the American Historical 
Review is here amplified into a long and exhaustive treat- 
ment of the subject. The original paper gained Bourne 



194 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

some celebrity and subjected him to some harsh criticism, 
both of which, I think, he thoroughly enjoyed. Feeling 
sure of his facts and ground, he delighted in his final word 
to support the contention which he had read with emphasis 
and pleasure to an attentive audience in one of the halls of 
the University of Michigan. The final paragraph sums up 
what he set out to prove with undoubted success : 

That Marcus Whitman was a devoted and heroic missionary 
who braved every hardship and imperilled his life for the cause of 
Christian missions and Christian civilization in the far Northwest 
and finally died at his post, a sacrifice to the cause, will not be 
gainsaid. That he deserves grateful commemoration in Oregon 
and Washington is beyond dispute. But that he is a national 
figure in American history, or that he "saved" Oregon, must be 
rejected as a fiction [p. 1001. 

Bourne had a good knowledge of American history, and 
he specialized on the Discoveries period, to which he gave 
close and continuous attention. He was indebted to Pro- 
fessor Hart's ambitious and excellent cooperative history, 
''The American Nation," for the opportunity to obtain a 
hearing on his favorite subject. His "Spain in America," 
his third published book, is the book of a scholar. While 
the conditions of his narrative allowed only forty-six pages 
to the story of Columbus, he had undoubtedly material 
enough well arranged and digested to fill the volume on this 
topic alone. I desire to quote a signal example of com- 
pression : 

It was November, 1504, when Columbus arrived in Seville, a 
broken man, something over twelve years from the time he first 
set sail from Palos. Each successive voyage since his first had 
left him at a lower point. On his return from the second he was 
on the defensive; after his third he was deprived of his viceroyalty; 
on his fourth he was shipwrecked, . . . The last blow, the death 
of his patron Isabella, soon followed. It was months before he was 



EDWARD GAYLORD BOURNE 195 

able to attend court. His strength gradually failed, he sank 
from public view, and on the eve of Ascension Day, May 20, 1506, 
he passed away in obscurity [p. 81]. 

And I am very fond of this final characterization: 

Columbus . . . has revealed himself in his writings as few men 
of action have been revealed. His hopes, his illusions, his vanity, 
and love of money, his devotion to by-gone ideals, his keen and 
sensitive observation of the natural world, his credulity and utter 
lack of critical power in dealing with Hterary evidence, his practical 
abilities as a navigator, his tenacity of purpose and boldness of 
execution, his lack of fidelity as a husband and a lover, ... all 
stand out in clear relief. ... Of all the self-made men that 
America has produced, none has had a more dazzling success, a 
more pathetic sinking to obscurity, or achieved a more universal 
celebrity [p. 82]. 

His chapter on Magellan is thoroughly interesting. The 
treatment of Columbus and Magellan shows what Bourne 
might have achieved in historical work if he could have had 
leisure to select his own subjects and elaborate them at will. 

Before ''Spain in America" appeared, he wrote a scholarly 
introduction to the vast work on the ''Philippine Islands" 
published by the Arthur H. Clark Company, of Cleveland, 
of which fifty-one volumes are already out. The study of 
this subject gave Bourne a chance for the exhibition of his 
dry wit at one of the gatherings of the American Historical 
Association. It was asserted that in the acquisition of the 
Philippine Islands our country had violated the spirit of 
the Monroe Doctrine, which properly confined our indulgence 
of the land hunger that is preying upon the world to the West- 
ern hemisphere. Bourne took issue with this statement. He 
said that it might well be a question whether the Philippine 
Islands did not belong to the Western hemisphere and that — 

for the first three centuries of their recorded history, they were in 
a sense a dependency of America. As a dependency of New Spain 



196 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

they constituted the extreme western verge of the Spanish do- 
minions and were commonly known as the Western Islands. 
When the sun rose in Madrid it was still early afternoon of the 
preceding day in Manila. Down to the end of the year 1844 the 
Manilan calendar was reckoned after that of Spain, that is, Manila 
time was about sixteen hours slower than Madrid time. 

Bourne undertook to write the Life of Motley for 
Houghton, Mifflin and Company's American Men of Letters 
series, and he had done considerable work in the investiga- 
tion of material. He was editor of a number of publications, 
one of which was John Fiske's posthumous volume, ''New 
France and New England," and he wrote critical notices 
for the Nation, New Yoi'k Tribune, and the New York 
Times. As I have said, he had a large family to support, 
and he sought work of the potboiling order; but in this 
necessary labor he never sacrificed his ideal of thorough- 
ness. A remark that he made to me some while ago has 
come back with pathetic interest. After telling me what he 
was doing, how much time his teaching left for outside work, 
why he did this and that because it brought him money, he 
said : ''I can get along all right. I can support my family, 
educate my children, and get a little needed recreation, if 
only my health does not break down." 

Bourne took great interest in the American Historical 
Association, and rarely if ever missed an annual meeting. 
He frequently read papers, which were carefully prepared, 
and a number of them are printed in the volume of Essays 
to which I have referred. He was the efficient chairman of 
the programme committee at the meeting in New Haven in 
1898 ; and as chairman of an important committee, or as 
member of the Council, he attended the November dinners 
and meetings in New York, so that he came to be looked 
upon as one of the chief supporters of the Association. 



EDWARD GAYLORD BOURNE 197 

Interested also in the American Historical Review, he was 
a frequent contributor of critical book notices. 

My acquaintance with Bourne began in 1888, the year in 
which I commenced the composition of my history. We 
were both living in Cleveland, and, as it was his custom to 
dine with me once or twice a month, acquaintance grew into 
friendship, and I came to have a great respect for his training 
and knowledge as a historical scholar. The vastness of his- 
torical inquiry impressed me, as it has all writers of history. 
Recognizing in Bourne a kindred spirit, it occurred to me 
whether I could not hasten my work if he would employ 
part of his summer vacation in collecting material. I im- 
parted the idea to Bourne, who received it favorably, and 
he spent a month of the summer of 1889 at work for me in 
the Boston Athenaeum on my general specifications, laboring 
with industry and discrimination over the newspapers of 
the early '50's to which we had agreed to confine his work. 
His task completed, he made me a visit of a few days at 
Bar Harbor, affording an opportunity for us to discuss the 
period and his material. I was so impressed with the value 
of his assistance that, when the manuscript of my first two 
volumes was completed in 1891, I asked him to spend a 
month with me and work jointly on its revision. We used 
to devote four or five hours a day to this labor, and in 1894, 
when I had finished my third volume, we had a similar col- 
laboration.^ I have never known a better test of general 
knowledge and intellectual temper. 

Bourne was a slow thinker and worker, but he was sure, 
and, when he knew a thing, his exposition was clear and 
pointed. The chance of reflection over night and the 

* Bourne also revised the manuscript of my fourth volume, but the con- 
ditions did not admit of our being together more than two days, and the re- 
vision was not so satisfactory to either of us as that of the first three volumes. 



198 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

occasional discussion at meal times, outside of our set hours, 
gave him the opportunity to recall all his knowledge bearing 
on the subject in hand, to digest and classify it thoroughly, 
so that, when he tackled a question, he talked, so to speak, 
like a book. Two chapters especially attracted him, — 
the one on Slavery in my first volume, and the one on general 
financial and social conditions at the beginning of the third ; 
and I think that I may say that not only every paragraph 
and sentence, but every important word in these two chap- 
ters was discussed and weighed. Bourne was a good critic, 
and, to set him entirely at ease, as he was twelve years 
younger, I told him to lay aside any respect on account of 
age, and to speak out frankly, no matter how hard it hit, 
adding that I had better hear disagreeable things from him 
than to have them said by critics after the volumes were 
printed. 

The intelligent note on page 51 of my third volume was 
written by Bourne, as I state in the note itself, but I did not 
speak of the large amount of study he gave to it. I never 
knew a man take keener interest in anything, and as we had 
all the necessary authorities at hand, he worked over them 
for two days, coming down on the morning of the third day 
with the triumphant air of one who had wrestled successfully 
with a mathematical problem all night. He sat down and, 
as I remember it, wrote the note substantially as it now 
stands in the volume. He was very strong on all economic 
and sociological questions, displaying in a marked degree 
the intellectual stimulus he had derived from his association 
with Professor Sumner. He was a born controversialist 
and liked to argue. ''The appetite comes in eating" is a 
French saying, and with Bourne his knowledge seemed to be 
best evolved by the actual joint working and collision with 
another mind. 



EDWARD GAYLORD BOURNE 199 

I remember one felicitous suggestion of Bourne's which 
after much working over we incorporated into a paragraph 
to our common satisfaction ; and this paragraph received 
commendation in some critical notice. Showing this to 
Bourne, I said: ''That is the way of the world. You did 
the thinking, I got the credit." Bourne had, however, for- 
gotten his part in the paragraph. His mind was really so 
full of knowledge, when one could get at it, that he did not 
remember giving off any part of it. In addition to his 
quality of close concentration, he acquired a good deal of 
knowledge in a desultory way. In my library when con- 
versation lagged he would go to the shelves and take down 
book after book, reading a little here or there, lighting es- 
pecially upon any books that had been acquired since his 
previous visit, and with reading he would comment. This 
love of browsing in a library he acquired when a boy, so 
his brother informs me, and when at Yale it was said that he 
knew the library as well as the librarian himself. 

It will be remembered that last spring our accomplished 
editor, Mr. Smith, decided that he could no longer bear the 
burden of this highly important work; and the question of 
a fit successor came up at once in the mind of our President. 
Writing to me while I was in Europe, he expressed the desire 
of consulting with me on the subject as soon as I returned. 
I was unfortunately unable to get back in time for the June 
meeting of the Society; and afterwards when I reached 
Boston the President had gone West, and when he got home 
I was at Seal Harbor. To spare me the trip to Boston and 
Lincoln, he courteously offered to come to see me at Seal 
Harbor, where we had the opportunity to discuss the sub- 
ject in all its bearings. It will be quite evident from this 
narrative that my choice for editor would be no other than 
Professor Bourne, and I was much gratified to learn that 



200 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

the President from his own observation and reflection had 
determined on the same man. Mr. Adams had been ac- 
customed to see Bourne at meetings of the American His- 
torical Association and at dinners of their Council ; but, so 
he informed me, he was not specially impressed by him until 
he read the essay on Marcus Whitman, which gave him 
a high idea of Bourne's power of working over material, and 
his faculty of trenchant criticism. We arrived readily at 
the conclusion that Bourne would be an ideal editor and 
that the position would suit him perfectly. Relieved of 
the drudgery of teaching, he could give full swing to his love 
of books and to his desire of running down through all the 
authorities some fact or reference bearing upon the subject 
in hand. The work would be a labor of love on which he 
could bring to bear his knowledge, conscientious endeavor, 
and historical training. It would have been a case of mu- 
tual benefit. He would be fortunate in securing such a 
position, and the Society might be congratulated on being 
able to get a man so peculiarly qualified for editorial work. 
But there was the question of Bourne's health. We both 
knew that he had been failing, but we were not aware that 
his case was hopeless. The President did not wish to pre- 
sent his recommendation to the Council until there was a 
reasonable chance of his recovery, and I undertook from 
time to time to get information from a common friend in 
New Haven of his progress. But there was no good news. 
While Bourne, with the help of his devoted wife, made an 
energetic fight for life, it was unavailing. In his death Yale 
lost an excellent teacher of history and this Society a can- 
didate who, if he had been chosen, would have made an 
accomplished editor. 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 

Printed in Scrihner^s Magazine, of February, 1903. 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 

The English Constitution, as it existed between 1760 and 
1787, was the model of the American, but parts of it were 
inapplicable to the conditions in which the thirteen Colonies 
found themselves, and where the model failed the Conven- 
tion struck out anew. The sagacity of the American states- 
men in this creative work may well fill Englishmen, so Sir 
Henry Maine wrote, '^ with wonder and envy." Mr. Bryce's 
classification of constitutions as flexible and rigid is apt: 
of our Constitution it may be said that in the main it is 
rigid in those matters which should not be submitted to the 
decision of a legislature or to a popular vote without checks 
which secure reflection and a chance for the sober second 
thought, and that it has proved flexible in its adaptation to 
the growth of the country and to the development of the 
nineteenth century. Sometimes, though, it is flexible to 
the extent of lacking precision. An instance of this is the 
proviso for the counting of the electoral vote. ''The votes 
shall then be counted" are the words. Thus, when in 1876 
it was doubtful whether Tilden or Hayes had been chosen 
President, a fierce controversy arose as to who should count 
the votes, the President of the Senate or Congress. While 
many regretted the absence of an incontrovertible provision, 
it was fortunate for the country that the Constitution did not 
provide that the vote should be counted by the President of 
the Senate, who, the Vice President having died in office, 
was in 1877 a creature of the partisan majority. It is doubt- 
ful, too, if the decision of such an officer would have been 
acquiesced in by the mass of Democrats, who thought that 

203 



204 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

they had fairly elected their candidate. There being no 
express declaration of the Constitution, it devolved upon 
Congress to settle the dispute; the ability and patriotism 
of that body was equal to the crisis. By a well-devised 
plan of arbitration, Congress relieved the strain and pro- 
vided for a peaceful settlement of a difficulty which in most 
countries would have led to civil war. 

In the provisions conferring the powers and defining the 
duties of the executive the flexible character of the Con- 
stitution is shown in another way. Everything is clearly 
stated, but the statements go not beyond the elementary. 
The Convention knew what it wanted to say, and Gouver- 
neur Morris, who in the end drew up the document, wrote 
this part of it, as indeed all other parts, in clear and effective 
words. It is due to him, wrote Laboulaye, that the Con- 
stitution has a '^distinctness entirely French, in happy con- 
trast to the complicated language of the English laws." 
Yet on account of the elementary character of the article 
of the Constitution on the powers of the President, there is 
room for inference, a chance for development, and an oppor- 
tunity for a strong man to imprint his character upon the 
office. The Convention, writes Mr. Bryce, made its execu- 
tive a George III ''shorn of a part of his prerogative," 
his influence and dignity diminished by a reduction of the 
term of office to four years. The English writer was thor- 
oughly familiar with the Federalist, and appreciated Ham- 
ilton's politic efforts to demonstrate that the executive of 
the Constitution was modeled after the governors of the 
states, and not after the British monarch ; but "an enlarged 
copy of the state governor," Mr. Bryce asserts, is one and 
the same thing as "a reduced and improved copy of the 
English king." But, on the other hand, Bagehot did not 
believe that the Americans comprehended the English 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 205 

Constitution. ''Living across the Atlantic," he wrote, "and 
misled by accepted doctrines, the acute framers of the Fed- 
eral Constitution, even after the keenest attention, did not 
perceive the Prime Minister to be the principal executive 
of the British Constitution, and the sovereign a cog in the 
mechanism;" and he seems to think that if this had been 
understood the executive power would have been differently 
constituted. 

It is a pertinent suggestion of Mr. Bryce's that the mem- 
bers of the Convention must have been thinking of their 
presiding officer, George Washington, as the first man who 
would exercise the powers of the executive office they were 
creating. So it turned out. Never did a country begin a 
new enterprise with so wise a ruler. An admirable polity 
had been adopted, but much depended upon getting it to 
work, and the man who was selected to start the government 
was the man of all men for the task. Histories many and 
from different points of view have been written of Wash- 
ington's administration; all are interesting, and the sub- 
ject seems to ennoble the writers. Statesmen meeting with 
students to discuss the character and political acts of Wash- 
ington marvel at his wisdom in great things and his patience 
in small things, at the dignity and good sense with which 
he established the etiquette of his office, at the tact which 
retained in his service two such irreconcilable men as Jeffer- 
son and Hamilton. The importance of a good start for an 
infant government is well understood. But for our little 
state of four million people such a start was difficult to se- 
cure. The contentions which grew out of the ratification 
of the Constitution in the different states had left bitter 
feelings behind them, and these domestic troubles were 
heightened by our intimate relations with foreign countries. 
We touched England, France, and Spain at delicate points. 



206 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

and the infancy of our nation was passed during the tur- 
moil of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. 
In our midst there was an English and a French party. 
Moreover, in the judgment of the world the experiment of 
the new government was foredoomed to failure. Wrote 
Sir Henry Maine, ''It is not at all easy to bring home to 
the men of the present day how low the credit of republics 
had sunk before the establishment of the United States." 
Hardly were success to be won had we fallen upon quiet 
times; but with free governments discredited, and the 
word " liberty" made a reproach by the course of the French 
Revolution, it would seem impossible. 

Washington's prescience is remarkable. Recognizing, 
in October, 1789, that France had ''gone triumphantly 
through the first paroxysm," he felt that she must encoun- 
ter others, that more blood must be shed, that she might 
run from one extreme to another, and that "a higher-toned 
despotism" might replace "the one which existed before." 
Mentally prepared as he was, he met with skill the difficulties 
as they arose, so that the conduct of our foreign relations 
during the eight years of his administration was marked 
by discretion and furnished a good pattern to follow. Dur- 
ing his foreign negotiations he determined a constitutional 
question of importance. When the Senate had ratified and 
Washington, after some delay, had signed the Jay treaty, 
the House of Representatives, standing for the popular 
clamor against it, asked the President for all the papers 
relating to the negotiation, on the ground that the House 
of Representatives must give its concurrence. This demand 
he resisted, maintaining that it struck at "the fundamental 
principles of the Constitution," which conferred upon the 
President and the Senate the power of making treaties, and 
provided that these treaties when made and ratified were 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 207 

the supreme law of the land. In domestic affairs he showed 
discernment in selecting as his confidential adviser, Alex- 
ander Hamilton, a man who had great constructive talent ; 
and he gave a demonstration of the physical strength of 
the government by putting down the whisky rebellion in 
Pennsylvania. During his eight years he construed the 
powers conferred upon the executive by the Constitution 
with wisdom, and exercised them with firmness and vigor. 
Washington was a man of exquisite manners and his con- 
duct of the office gave it a dignity and prestige which, with 
the exception of a part of one term, it has never lost. 

Four of the five Presidents who followed Washington were 
men of education and ability, and all of them had large 
political training and experience; they reached their posi- 
tion by the process of a natural selection in politics, being 
entitled fitly to the places for which they were chosen. The 
three first fell upon stormy times and did their work during 
periods of intense partisan excitement; they were also 
subject to personal detraction, but the result in the aggre- 
gate of their administrations was good, inasmuch as they 
either maintained the power of the executive or increased 
its influence. Despite their many mistakes they somehow 
overcame the great difficulties. Each one did something 
of merit and the country made a distinct gain from John 
Adams to Monroe. Any one of them suffers by comparison 
with Washington: the ''era of good feeling" was due to 
Congress and the people as well as to the executive. Never- 
theless, the three turbulent administrations and the two 
quiet ones which succeeded Washington's may at this dis- 
tance from them be contemplated with a feeling of gratu- 
lation. The Presidents surrounded themselves for the most 
part with men of ability, experience, and refinement, who 
carried on the government with dignity and a sense of pro- 



208 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

portion, building well upon the foundations which Wash- 
ington had laid. 

A contrast between France and the United States leads 
to curious reflections. The one has a past rich in art, litera- 
ture, and architecture, which the other almost entirely 
lacks. But politically the older country has broken with 
the past, while we have political traditions peculiar to our- 
selves of the highest value. For the man American-born 
they may be summed up in Washington, the rest of the 
'^ Fathers," and the Constitution; and those who leave 
England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Germany, and Scandi- 
navia to make their home in America soon come to share in 
these possessions. While the immigrants from southern 
Europe do not comprehend the Constitution, they know 
Washington. An object lesson may be had almost any 
pleasant Sunday or holiday in the public garden in Boston 
from the group of Italians who gather about the statue of 
Washington, showing, by their mobile faces and animated 
talk, that they revere him who is the father of their adopted 
country. 

During these five administrations, at least two important 
extensions or assertions of executive power were made. In 
1803 Jefferson bought Louisiana, doing, he said, '^an act 
beyond the Constitution." He was a strict constructionist, 
and was deeply concerned at the variance between his con- 
stitutional principles and a desire for the material advan- 
tage of his country. In an effort to preserve his consistency 
he suggested to his Cabinet and political friends an amend- 
ment to the Constitution approving and confirming the 
cession of this territory, but they, deeming such an amend- 
ment entirely unnecessary, received his suggestion coldly. 
In the debate on the Louisiana treaty in the Senate and the 
House, all speakers of both parties agreed that ''the United 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 209 

States government had the power to acquire new territory 
either by conquest or by treaty." ^ Louisiana, ''without 
its consent and against its will/' was annexed to the United 
States, and Jefferson ''made himself monarch of the new 
territory, and wielded over it, against its protests, the powers 
of its old kings." ^ 

The assertion by the President in 1823 of the Monroe 
Doctrine (which Mr. Worthington C. Ford has shown to be 
the John Quincy Adams doctrine) is an important circum- 
stance in the development of the executive power. 

President John Quincy Adams was succeeded by Andrew 
Jackson, a man of entirely different character from those 
who had preceded him in the office, and he represented 
different aims. Adams deserved another term. His sturdy 
Americanism, tempered by the cautiousness in procedure 
which was due to his rare training, made him an excellent 
public servant, and the country erred in not availing itself 
of his further service. The change from the regime of the 
first six Presidents to that of Jackson was probably inevi- 
table. A high-toned democracy, based on a qualified suf- 
frage, believing in the value of training for public life and 
administrative office, setting a value on refinement and good 
manners, was in the end sure to give way to a pure democ- 
racy based on universal suffrage whenever it could find 
a leader to give it force and direction. Jackson was such a 
leader. His followers felt: "He is one of us. He is not 
proud and does not care for style." ^ The era of vulgarity 
in national politics was ushered in by Jackson, who as Presi- 
dent introduced the custom of rewarding political workers 
with offices, an innovation entirely indefensible ; he ought 
to have continued the practice of his six predecessors. The 
interaction between government and politics on the one hand 

* Henry Adams, II, 113. ^ Ihid., 130. ^ Sumner's Jackson, 138. 



210 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

and the life of the people on the other is persistent, and it 
may be doubted whether the United States would have 
seemed as it did to Dickens had not Jackson played such 
an important part in the vulgarization of politics. Yet it 
was a happy country, as the pages of Tocqueville bear 
witness. 

Jackson was a strong executive and placed in his Cabinet 
men who would do his will, and who, from his own point 
of view, were good advisers, since they counseled him to 
pursue the course he had marked out for himself. Com- 
paring his Cabinet officers to those of the Presidents 
preceding him, one reahzes that another plan of governing 
was set on foot, based on the theory that any American 
citizen is fit for any position to which he is called. It was 
an era when special training for administrative work 
began to be shghted, when education beyond the rudiments 
was considered unnecessary except in the three professions, 
when the practical man was apotheosized and the bookish 
man despised. Jackson, uneducated and wdth little ex- 
perience in civil life, showed what power might be exer- 
cised by an arbitrary, unreasonable man who had the people 
at his back. The brilliant three — Webster, Clay, and Cal- 
houn — were unable to prevail against his power. 

Jackson's financial policy may be defended ; yet had it 
not been for his course during the nullification trouble, his 
declaration, ''Our Federal Union: It must be preserved," 
and his consistent and vigorous action in accordance with 
that sentiment it would be difficult to affirm that the in- 
fluence of his two terms of office was good. It cannot be 
said that he increased permanently the power of the exec- 
utive, but he showed its capabilities. It is somewhat 
curious, however, that Tocqueville, whose observations were 
made under Jackson, should have written: ''The Presi- 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 211 

dent possesses almost royal prerogatives, which he never 
has an opportunity of using. . . . The laws permit him 
to be strong; circumstances keep him weak." 

The eight Presidents from Jackson to Lincoln did not 
raise the character of the presidential office. Van Buren 
was the heir of Jackson. Of the others, five owed their 
nominations to their availability. The evil which Jackson 
did lived after him ; indeed, only a man as powerful for the 
good as he had been for the bad could have restored the 
civil service to the merit system which had prevailed before 
he occupied the White House. The offices were at stake 
in every election, and the scramble for them after the deter- 
mination of the result was great and pressing. The chief 
business of a President for many months after his inaugu- 
ration was the dealing out of the offices to his followers and 
henchmen. It was a bad scheme, from the political point of 
view, for every President except him who inaugurated it, 
Richelieu is reported to have said, on making an appoint- 
ment, ''I have made a hundred enemies and one ingrate." 
So might have said many times the Presidents who suc- 
ceeded Jackson. 

The Whig, a very respectable party, having in its ranks 
the majority of the men of wealth and education, fell a 
victim to the doctrine of availability when it nominated 
Harrison on account of his military reputation. He lived 
only one month after his inauguration, and Tyler, the Vice 
President, who succeeded him, reverted to his old political 
principles, which were Democratic, and broke with the 
Whigs. By an adroit and steady use of the executive power 
he effected the annexation of Texas, but the master spirit 
in this enterprise was Calhoun, his Secretary of State. 
Polk, his Democratic successor, coveted California and New 
Mexico, tried to purchase them, and not being able to do 



212 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

this, determined on war. In fact, he had decided to send 
in a war message to Congress before the news came that the 
Mexicans, goaded to it by the action of General Taylor, 
under direct orders of the President, had attacked an Amer- 
ican force and killed sixteen of our dragoons. This gave 
a different complexion to his message, and enabled him to 
get a strong backing from Congress for his war policy. The 
actions of Tyler and of Polk illustrate the power inherent 
in the executive office. It might seem that the exercise 
of this authority, securing for us at small material cost the 
magnificent domains of Texas, California, and New Mexico, 
would have given these Presidents a fame somewhat like 
that which Jefferson won by the purchase of Louisiana. 
But such has not been the case. The main reason is that 
the extension of slavery was involved in both enterprises, 
and the histories of these times, which have molded his- 
torical sentiment, have been written from the anti-slavery 
point of view. It seems hardly probable that this senti- 
ment will be changed in any time that we can forecast, but 
there is an undoubted tendency in the younger historical 
students to look upon the expansion of the country as the 
important consideration, and the slavery question as inci- 
dental. Professor von Hoist thought this changing histori- 
cal sentiment entirely natural, but he felt sure that in the 
end men would come round to the antislavery view, of 
which he was so powerful an advocate. 

From Taylor to Lincoln slavery dominated all other 
questions. Taylor was a Southern man and a slaveholder, 
and by his course on the Compromise measures attracted 
the favor of antislavery men ; while Fillmore of New York, 
who succeeded this second President to die in office, and 
who exerted the power of the Administration to secure the 
passage of Clay's Compromise and signed the Fugitive 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 213 

Slave Law, had but a small political following at the North. 
Pierce and Buchanan were weak, the more positive men 
in their Cabinets and in the Senate swayed them. For a 
part of both of their terms the House of Representatives 
was controlled by the opposition, the Senate remaining 
Democratic. These circumstances are evidence both of the 
length of time required to change the political complexion 
of the Senate and of the increasing power of the North, 
which was dominant in the popular House. For the decade 
before the Civil War we should study the Senate, the House 
of Representatives, the Supreme Court, the action of the 
states, and popular sentiment. The executive is still 
powerful, but he is powerful because he is the. representative 
of a party or faction which dictates the use that shall be 
made of his constitutional powers. The presidential office 
loses interest : irresolute men are in the White House, strong 
men everywhere else. 

Lincoln is inaugurated President; the Civil War ensues, 
and with it an extraordinary development of the executive 
power. It is an interesting fact that the ruler of a republic 
which sprang from a resistance to the English king and 
Parliament should exercise more arbitrary power than any 
Englishman since Oliver Cromwell, and that many of his 
acts should be worthy of a Tudor. Lincoln was a good 
lawyer who reverenced the Constitution and the laws, and 
only through necessity assumed and exercised extra-legal 
powers, trying at the same time to give to these actions the 
color of legality. Hence his theory of the war power of the 
Constitution, which may be construed to permit everything 
necessary to carry on the war. Yet his dictatorship was 
different from Caesar's and different from the absolute 
authority of Napoleon. He acted under the restraints im- 
posed by his own legal conscience and patriotic soul, whose 



214 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

influence was revealed in his confidential letters and talks. 
We know furthermore that he often took counsel of his 
Cabinet officers before deciding matters of moment. Cer- 
tain it is that in arbitrary arrests Seward and Stanton were 
disposed to go further than Lincoln. The spirit of arbi- 
trary power was in the air, and unwise and unjust acts were 
done by subordinates, which, although Lincoln would not 
have done them himself, he deemed it better to ratify than 
to undo. This was notably the case in the arrest of Vallan- 
digham. Again, Congress did not always do what Lincoln 
wished, and certain men of his own party in Congress were 
strong enough to influence his actions in various ways. 
But, after all, he was himself a strong man exercising com- 
prehensive authority; and it is an example of the flexi- 
bility of the Constitution that, while it surely did not au- 
thorize certain of Lincoln's acts, it did not expressly forbid 
them. It was, for example, an open question whether the 
Constitution authorized Congress or the President to sus- 
pend the writ of habeas corpus. 

It seems to be pretty well settled by the common sense 
of mankind that when a nation is fighting for its existence 
it cannot be fettered by all the legal technicalities which 
obtain in the time of peace. Happy the country whose 
dictatorship, if dictator there must be, falls into wise and 
honest hands ! The honesty, magnanimity, and wisdom of 
Lincoln guided him aright, and no harm has come to the 
great principles of liberty from the arbitrary acts which he 
did or sufTered to be done. On the other hand he has so 
impressed himself upon the Commonwealth that he has 
made a precedent for future rulers in a time of national 
peril, and what he excused and defended will be assumed 
as a matter of course because it will be according to the 
Constitution as interpreted by Abraham Lincoln. This the 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 215 

Supreme Court foresaw when it rendered its judgment in 
the MiUigan case, saying: '^Wicked men ambitious of 
power, with hatred of Hberty and contempt of law, may 
fill the place once occupied by Washington and Lincoln, 
and if this right is conceded [that of a commander in a time 
of war to declare martial law within the lines of his military 
district and subject citizens as well as soldiers to the rule of 
his will] and the calamities of war again befall us, the dan- 
gers to human liberty are frightful to contemplate." No 
one can deny that a danger here exists, but it is not so great 
as the solemn words of the Supreme Court might lead one 
to believe. For Lincoln could not have persisted in his ar- 
bitrary acts had a majority of Congress definitely opposed 
them, and his real strength lay in the fact that he had the 
people at his back. This may be said of the period from 
the first call of troops in April, 1861, until the summer of 
1862. McClellan's failure on the Peninsula, Pope's disaster 
at the second battle of Bull Run, the defeats at Fredericks- 
burg and Chancellorsville lost Lincoln the confidence of 
many; and while the emancipation proclamation of Sep- 
tember, 1862, intensified the support of others, it neverthe- 
less alienated some Republicans and gave to the opposition 
of the Democrats a new vigor. But after Gettysburg and 
Vicksburg in July, 1863, Lincoln had the support of the mass 
of the Northern people. Whatever he did the people be- 
lieved was right because he had done it. The trust each 
placed in the other is one of the inspiring examples of free 
government and democracy. Lincoln did not betray their 
confidence : they did not falter save possibly for brief 
moments during the gloomy summer of 1864. The people 
who gave their unreserved support to Lincoln were endued 
with intelligence and common sense ; not attracted by any 
personal magnetism of the man, they had, by a process of 



216 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

homely reasoning, attained their convictions and from 
these they were not to be shaken. This is the safety of a 
dictatorship as long as the same intelHgence obtains among 
the voters as now; for the people will not support a ruler 
in the exercise of extra-legal powers unless he be honest and 
patriotic. The danger may come in a time of trouble from 
either an irresolute or an unduly obstinate executive. The 
irresolute man would baffle the best intentions of the voters ; 
the obstinate man might quarrel with Congress and the 
people. Either event in time of war would be serious and 
might be disastrous. But the chances are against another 
Buchanan or Johnson in the presidential office. 

If the Civil War showed the flexibility of the Constitution 
in that the executive by the general agreement of Congress 
and the people was able to assume unwarranted powers, 
the course of affairs under Johnson demonstrated the 
strength that Congress derived from the organic act. The 
story is told in a sentence by Blaine: "Two thirds of each 
House united and stimulated to one end can practically 
neutralize the executive power of the government and lay 
down its policy in defiance of the efforts and opposition of 
the President." ^ What a contrast between the two ad- 
ministrations ! Under Lincoln Congress, for the most part, 
simply registered the will of the President ; under Johnson 
the President became a mere executive clerk of Congress. 
In the one case the people supported the President, in the 
other they sustained Congress. Nothing could better illus- 
trate the flexibility of the Constitution than the contrast 
between these administrations; but it needs no argument 
to show that to pass from one such extreme to another is 
not healthy for the body politic. The violent antagonisms 
aroused during Johnson's administration, when the difficult 
* Twenty Years of Congress, II, 185. 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 217 

questions to be settled needed the best statesmanship of 
the country, and when the President and Congress should 
have cooperated wisely and sympathetically, did incal- 
culable harm. Johnson, by habits, manners, mind, and 
character, was unfit for the presidential office, and whatever 
may have been the merit of his policy, a policy devised by 
angels could never have been carried on by such an advo- 
cate. The American people love order and decency ; they 
have a high regard for the presidential office, and they desire 
to see its occupant conduct himself with dignity. Jackson 
and Lincoln lacked many of the external graces of a gentle- 
man, but both had native qualities which enabled them to 
bear themselves with dignity on public occasions. Johnson 
degraded the office, and he is the only one of our Presidents 
of whom this can be said. Bagehot, writing in 1872, drew 
an illustration from one of the darkest periods of our repub- 
lic to show the superiority of the English Constitution. If 
we have a Prime Minister who does not suit Parliament and 
the people, he argued, we remove him by a simple vote of 
the House of Commons. The United States can only get 
rid of its undesirable executive by a cumbrous and tedious 
process which can only be brought to bear during a period 
of revolutionary excitement; and even this failed because 
a legal case was not made against the President. The criti- 
cism was pregnant, but the remedy was not Cabinet re- 
sponsibility. Whatever may be the merits or demerits of 
our polity, it has grown as has the English ; it has fitted 
itself to the people, and cabinet government cannot be had 
without a complete change of the organic act, which is 
neither possible nor desirable. The lespon was that the 
national conventions should exercise more care in naming 
their vice-presidential candidates ; and these bodies have 
heeded it. When Grant, popular throughout the country, 



218 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

nominated by the unanimous vote of the Republican con- 
vention, became President, Congress restored to the execu- 
tive a large portion of the powers of which it had been shorn 
during Johnson's administration. Grant had splendid op- 
portunities which he did not improve, and he left no especial 
impression on the office. In the opinion of one of his warm 
friends and supporters he made "a, pretty poor President." 
An able opposition to him developed in his own party ; and 
as he was a sensitive man he felt keenly their attacks. Colo- 
nel John Hay told me that, when on a visit to Washington 
during Grant's administration, he had arrived at the Arling- 
ton Hotel at an early hour and started out for a walk ; in 
front of the White House he was surprised to meet the 
President, who was out for the same purpose. The two 
walked together to the Capitol and back. Grant showing 
himself to be anything but a silent man. Manifesting a keen 
sensitiveness to the attacks upon him, he talked all of the 
time in a voluble manner, and the burden of his talk was a 
defense of his administrative acts. It is impossible in our 
minds to dissociate Grant the President from Grant the 
General, and for this reason American historical criticism 
will deal kindly with him. The brilliant victor of Donelson, 
the bold strategist of Vicksburg, the compeller of men at 
Chattanooga, the vanquisher of Robert E. Lee in March and 
April, 1865, the magnanimous conqueror at Appomattox, 
will be treated with charity by those who write about his 
presidential terms, because he meant well although he did 
not know how to do well. Moreover, the good which Grant 
did is of that salient kind which will not be forgotten. The 
victorious general, with two trusted military subordinates 
in the prime of life and a personnel for a strong navy, per- 
sisted, under the guidance of his wise Secretary of State, 
Hamilton Fish, in negotiating a treaty which provided for 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 219 

arbitration and preserved the peace with Great Britain; 
although, in the opinion of the majority, the country had a 
just cause of war in the escape of the Florida and the Ala- 
bama. After the panic of 1873, when financiers and capi- 
talists lost their heads, and Congress with the approval of 
public sentiment passed an act increasing the amount of 
United States notes in circulation. Grant, by a manly and 
bold veto, prevented this inflation of the currency. The 
wisdom of the framers of the Constitution in giving the 
President the veto power was exemplified. Congress did not 
pass the act over the veto, and Grant has been justified by 
the later judgment of the nation. His action demonstrated 
what a President may do in resisting by his constitutional 
authority some transitory wave of popular opinion, and it 
has proved a precedent of no mean value. Johnson's vetoes 
became ridiculous. Grant's veto compensates for many 
of his mistakes. 

Said Chancellor Kent in 1826 : ''If ever the tranquillity of 
this nation is to be disturbed and its liberties endangered by 
a struggle for power, it will be upon this very subject of the 
choice of a President. This is the question that is eventu- 
ally to test the goodness and try the strength of the Con- 
stitution, and if we shall be able for half a century hereafter 
to continue to elect the chief magistrate of the Union with 
discretion, moderation, and integrity we shall undoubtedly 
stamp the highest value on our national character." Just 
fifty years later came a more dangerous test than Kent 
could have imagined. Somewhat more than half of the 
country believed that the states of Florida and Louisiana 
should be counted for Tilden, and that he was therefore 
elected. On the other hand, nearly one half of tlie voters 
were of the opinion that those electoral votes should be 
given to Hayes, which would elect him by the majority of 



220 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

one electoral vote. Each of the parties had apparently a 
good case, and after an angry controversy became only the 
more firmly and sincerely convinced that its own point of 
view was unassailable. The Senate was Republican, the 
House Democratic. The great Civil War had been ended 
only eleven years before, and the country was full of fighting 
men. The Southern people were embittered against the 
dominant party for the reason that Reconstruction had 
gone otherwise than they had expected in 1865 when they 
laid down their arms. The country was on the verge of a 
civil war over the disputed Presidency — a war that might 
have begun with an armed encounter on the floor of the 
Senate or the House. This was averted by a carefully 
prepared congressional act, which in effect left the dispute 
to a board of arbitration. To the statesmen of both parties 
who devised this plan and who cooperated in carrying the 
measure through Congress ; to the members of the Electoral 
Commission, who in the bitterest strife conducted them- 
selves with dignity ; to the Democratic Speaker of the House 
and the Democrats who followed his lead, the eternal grati- 
tude of the country is due. ''He that ruleth his spirit is 
better than he that taketh a city." The victories of Manila 
and Santiago are as nothing compared with the victorious 
restraint of the American people in 1876 and 1877 and the 
acquiescence of one half of the country in what they be- 
lieved to be an unrighteous decision. Hayes was inaugu- 
rated peacefully, but had to conduct his administration in 
the view of 4,300,000 voters who believed that, whatever 
might be his legal claim, he had no moral right to the place 
he occupied. The Democrats controlled the House of Rep- 
resentatives during the whole of his term, and the Senate 
for a part of it, and at the outset he encountered the opposi- 
tion of the stalwart faction of his own party. Nevertheless.. 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 221 

he made a successful President, and under him the office 
gained in force and dignity. Hayes was not a man of bril- 
hant parts or wide intelligence, but he had common sense 
and decision of character. Surrounding himself with a 
strong Cabinet, three members of which were really remark- 
able for their ability, he entered upon a distinct policy from 
which flowed good results. He withdrew the Federal troops 
from the states of South Carolina and Louisiana, inaugu- 
rating in these states an era of comparative peace and tran- 
quillity. Something was done in the interest of Civil 
Service Reform. In opposition to the view of his Secretary 
of the Treasury and confidential friend, John Sherman, he 
vetoed the act of 1878 for the remonetization of silver by 
the coinage of a certain amount of silver dollars — the first 
of those measures which almost brought us to the monetary 
basis of silver. His guiding principle was embodied in a 
remark he made in his inaugural address, ^'He serves his 
party best who serves the country best." He and his ac- 
complished wife had a social and moral influence in Wash- 
ington of no mean value. The Civil War had been followed 
by a period of corruption, profligacy, and personal immo- 
rality. In politics, if a man were sound on the main question, 
which meant if he were a thorough-going Republican, all 
else was forgiven. Under Hayes account was again taken 
of character and fitness. The standard of political admin- 
istration was high. While Mrs. Hayes undoubtedly carried 
her total abstinence principles to an extreme not warranted 
by the usage of good society, the moral atmosphere of the 
White House was that of most American homes. Mr. and 
Mrs. Hayes belonged to that large class who are neither rich 
nor poor, neither learned nor ignorant, but who are led both 
by their native common sense and by their upbringing to 
have a high respect for learning, a belief in education, 



/'.v' 



222 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

morality, and religion, and a lofty ideal for their own per- 
sonal conduct. 

The salient feature of Garfield's few months of adminis- 
tration was a quarrel between him and the senators from 
New York State about an important appointment. Into 
this discussion, which ended in a tragedy, entered so many 
factors that it is impossible to determine exactly the in- 
fluence on the power of the President and the growing power 
of the Senate. One important result of it shall be men- 
tioned. The Civil Service Reform Bill, introduced into the 
Senate by a Democrat, was enacted during Arthur's admin- 
istration by a large and non-partisan majority. It pro- 
vided for a non-partisan civil service commission, and 
established open competitive examinations for applicants 
for certain offices, making a commencement by law of the 
merit system, which before had depended entirely upon 
executive favor. It was a victory for reformers who had 
been advocating legislation of such a character from a 
period shortly after the close of the Civil War; for it was 
at that time that a few began the work of educating public 
sentiment, which had acquiesced in the rotation of offices 
as an American principle well worthy of maintenance. 
Consequences far-reaching and wholesome followed the 
passage of this important act. Grant had attempted and 
Hayes had accomplished a measure of reform, but to really 
fix the merit system in the civil service a law was needed. 

Regarded by the lovers of good government as a machine 
poHtician, Arthur happily disappointed them by breaking 
loose from his old associations and pursuing a manly course. 
He gave the country a dignified administration ; but, even 
had he been a man to impress his character upon the office, 
conditions were against him. His party was torn by in- 
ternal dissensions and suffered many defeats, of which the 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 223 

most notable was in his own state of New York, where his 
Secretary of the Treasury and personal friend was over- 
whelmingly defeated for governor by Grover Cleveland. 

The unprecedented majority which Cleveland received 
in this election and his excellent administration as Gov- 
ernor of New York secured for him the Democratic nomina- 
tion for President in 1884. New York State decided the 
election, but the vote was so close that for some days the 
result was in doubt and the country was nervous lest there 
should be another disputed Presidency; in the end it was 
determined that Cleveland had carried that state by a 
plurality of 1149. Cleveland was the first Democratic 
President elected since 1856; the Democrats had been out 
of office for twenty-four years, and it had galled them to 
think that their historic party had so long been deprived of 
power and patronage. While many of their leaders had a 
good record on the question of Civil Service Reform, the 
rank and file believed in the Jacksonian doctrine of reward- 
ing party workers with the offices, or, as most of them would 
have put it, ^'To the victors belong the spoils." With this 
principle so fixed in the minds of his supporters, it became 
an interesting question how Cleveland would meet it. No 
one could doubt that he would enforce fairly the statute, but 
would he content himself with this and use the offices not 
covered by the act to reward his followers in the old Demo- 
cratic fashion ? An avowed civil service reformer, and 
warmly supported by independents and some former Re- 
publicans on that account, he justified the confidence which 
they had reposed in him and refused "to make a clean 
sweep." In resisting this very powerful pressure from his 
party he accomplished much toward the establishment 
of the merit system in the civil service. It is true that he 
made political changes gradually, but his insistence on a rule 



224 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

which gained him time for reflection in making appoint- 
ments was of marked importance. It would be idle to 
assert that in his two terms he hved wholly up to the ideal 
of the reformers; undoubtedly a long list of backslidings 
might be made up, but in striking a fair balance it is not too 
much to say that in this respect his administration made 
for righteousness. All the more credit is due him in that he 
not only resisted personal pressure, but, aspiring to be a 
party leader for the carrying out of a cherished policy on 
finance and the tariff, he made more difficult the accom- 
plishment of these ends by refusing to be a mere partisan 
in the question of the offices. In his second term it is 
alleged, probably with truth, that he made a skillful use of 
his patronage to secure the passage by the Senate of the 
repeal of the Silver Act of 1890, which repeal had gone easily 
through the House. It seemed to him and to many finan- 
ciers that unless this large purchase of silver bullion should 
be stopped the country would be forced on to a silver basis, 
the existing financial panic would be grievously intensified, 
and the road back to the sound money basis of the rest of 
the civilized world would be long and arduous. His course 
is defended as doing a little wrong in order to bring about 
a great right; and the sequence of events has justified that 
defense. Harm was done to the cause of Civil Service 
Reform, but probably no permanent injury. The repeal of 
the Silver Act of 1890 was the first important step in 
the direction of insuring a permanent gold standard, and 
Grover Cleveland is the hero of it. 

The presidential office gained in strength during Cleve- 
land's two terms. As we look back upon them, the Presi- 
dent is the central figure round which revolves each policy 
and its success or failure. At the same time, it is his party 
more than he that is to be blamed for the failures. He 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 225 

made a distinct move toward a reduction of the tariff, and 
while this failed, leaving us with the reactionary result of 
higher duties than ever before, it is not impossible that the 
words, actions, and sacrifices of Cleveland will be the foun- 
dation of a new tariff-reform party. Allusion has been 
made to his soundness on finance. His course in this re- 
spect was unvarying. Capitalists and financiers can take 
care of themselves, no matter what are the changes in the 
currency; but men and women of fixed incomes, pro- 
fessors of colleges, teachers in schools, clergymen and min- 
isters, accountants and clerks in receipt of salaries, and 
farmers and laborers have had their comfort increased and 
their anxieties lessened by the adoption of the gold stand- 
ard ; and to Cleveland, as one of the pioneers in this move- 
ment for stability, their thanks are due. 

In the railj"oad riots of 1894 Cleveland, under the advice 
of his able Attorney-General, made a precedent in the way 
of interference for the supremacy of law and the mainte- 
nance of order. The Governor of Illinois would not preserve 
order, and the President determined that at all hazards 
riotous acts must be suppressed and law must resume its 
sway. In ordering United States troops to the scene of the 
disturbance without an application of the Legislature or 
Governor of Illinois he accomplished a fresh extension of 
executive power without an infraction of the Constitution. 

In his most important diplomatic action Cleveland was not 
so happy as in his domestic policy. There are able men 
experienced in diplomacy who defend his message of De- 
cember 17, 1895, to Congress in regard to Venezuela, and the 
wisdom of that action is still a mooted question. Yet two 
facts placed in juxtaposition would seem to indicate that 
the message was a mistake. It contained a veiled threat of 
war if England would not arbitrate her difference with 

Q 



226 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Venezuela, the implication being that the stronger power was 
trying to browbeat the weaker one. Later an arbitration 
took place, the award of which was a compromise, England 
gaining more than Venezuela, and the award demonstrated 
that England had not been as extreme and unjust in her 
claim as had been Venezuela. It is even probable that 
England might have accepted, as the result of negotiation, 
the line decided on by the arbitrators. But, to the credit of 
Mr. Cleveland and his Secretary of State, Mr. Olney, it must 
be remembered that they later negotiated a treaty "for the 
arbitration of all matters in difference between the United 
States and Great Britain," which unfortunately failed of 
ratification by the Senate. 

It is a fair charge against Cleveland as a partisan leader 
that, while he led a strong following to victory in 1892, he 
left his party disorganized in 1897. But it fell to him to 
decide between principle and party, and he chose principle. 
He served his country at the expense of his party. From 
the point of view of Democrats it was grievous that the only 
man under whom they had secured victory since the Civil 
War should leave them in a shattered condition, and it may 
be a question whether a ruler of more tact could not have 
secured his ends without so great a schism. Those, how- 
ever, to whom this party consideration does not appeal have 
no difficulty in approving Cleveland's course. It is un- 
deniable that his character is stamped on the presidential 
office, and his occupancy of it is a distinct mark in the his- 
tory of executive power. 

Harrison occupied the presidential office between the two 
terms of Cleveland, and although a positive man, left no 
particular impress upon the office. He was noted for his 
excellent judicial appointments, and he had undoubtedly 
a high standard of official conduct which he endeavored to 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 227 

live up to. Cold in his personal bearing he did not attract 
friends, and he was not popular with the prominent men in 
his own party. While Cleveland and McKinley were de- 
nounced by their opponents, Harrison was ridiculed; but 
the universal respect in which he was held after he retired 
to private life is evidence that the great office lost no dig- 
nity while he held it. During his term Congress overshad- 
owed the executive and the House was more conspicuous 
than the Senate. Thomas B. Reed was speaker and de- 
veloped the power of that office to an extraordinary extent. 
McKinley was the leader of the House and from long service 
in that body had become an efficient leader. The election 
of Harrison was interpreted to mean that the country 
needed a higher tariff, and IMcKinley carried through the 
House the bill which is known by his name. Among the 
other Representatives Mr. Lodge was prominent. It was 
not an uncommon saying at that time that the House was 
a better arena for the rising politician than the Senate. In 
addition to the higher tariff the country apparently wanted 
more silver and a determined struggle was made for the 
free coinage of silver which nearly won in Congress. In the 
end, however, a compromise was effected by Senator Sher- 
man which averted free silver but committed the country 
to the purchase annually of an enormous amount of silver 
bullion against which Treasury notes redeemable in coin 
were issued. This was the Act of 1890 which, as I have 
mentioned, was repealed under Cleveland in 1893. It is 
entirely clear from the sequence of events that the Repub- 
lican party as a party should have opposed the purchase of 
more silver. It could not have been beaten worse than it 
was in 1892, but it could have preserved a consistency in 
principle which, when the tide turned, would have been of 
political value. The party which has stuck to the right 



228 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

principle has in the long run generally been rewarded with 
power, and as the Republicans, in spite of certain defections, 
had been the party of sound money since the Civil War, 
they should now have fought cheap money under the guise 
of unlimited silver as they had before under the guise of un- 
limited greenbacks. But the leaders thought differently, 
and from their own point of view their course was natural. 
The country desired more silver. Business was largely 
extended, overtrading was the rule. Farmers and business 
men were straitened for money. Economists, statesmen, 
and politicians had told them that, as their trouble had come 
largely from the demonetization of silver, their relief lay in 
bimetallism. It was easy to argue that the best form of 
bimetalhsm was the free coinage of gold and silver, and after 
the panic of 1893 this delusion grew, but the strength of it 
was hardly appreciated by optimistic men in the East until 
the Democrats made it the chief plank in the platform on 
which they fought the presidential campaign of 1896. Nomi- 
nating an orator who had an effective manner of presenting 
his arguments to hard-working farmers whose farms were 
mortgaged, to business men who were under a continued 
strain to meet their obligations, and to laborers out of em- 
ployment, it seemed for two or three months as if the party 
of silver and discontent might carry the day. After some 
hesitation the Republicans grappled with the question boldly, 
took ground against free silver, and with some modification 
declared their approval of the gold standard. On this 
issue they fought the campaign. Their able and adroit 
manager was quick to see, after the issue was joined, the force 
of the principle of sound money and started a remarkable 
campaign of education by issuing speeches and articles hy 
the millions in a number of different languages, in providir>j; 
excellent arguments for the country press, and in convincing 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 229 

those who would Hsten only to arguments of sententious 
brevity by a well-devised circulation of ''nuggets" of finan- 
cial wisdom. McKinley had also the support of the greater 
part of the Independent and Democratic press. While 
financial magnates and the bankers of the country were 
alarmed at the strength of the Bryan party, and felt that 
its defeat was necessary to financial surety, the strength of 
the Republican canvass lay in the fact that the speakers and 
writers who made it believed sincerely that the gold standard 
would conduce to the greatest good of the greatest number. 
It was an inspiring canvass. The honest advocacy of sound 
principle won. 

Under McKinley the Democratic tariff bill was super- 
seded by the Dingley act, which on dutiable articles is, I 
believe, the highest tariff the country has known. The 
Republican party believes sincerely in the policy of protec- 
tion, and the country undoubtedly has faith in it. It is 
attractive to those who allow immediate returns to obscure 
prospective advantage, and if a majority decides whether 
or not a political and economic doctrine is sound, it has a 
powerful backing, for every large country in the civilized 
world, I think, except England, adheres to protection ; and 
some of them have returned to it after trying a measure of 
commercial freedom. McKinley and the majority of Con- 
gress were in full sympathy, and the Dingley act had the 
approval of the administration. But the change in business 
conditions which, though long in operation, became signally 
apparent after 1893, wrought in McKinley, during his four 
and a half years of office, a change of opinion. Under im- 
proved processes and economies in all branches of manu- 
factures the United States began to make many articles 
cheaper than any other country, and sought foreign markets 
for its surplus, disputing successfully certain open marts 



230 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

with England and Germany. In McKinley's earlier utter- 
ances the home market is the dominating feature; in his 
later ones, trade with foreign countries. In his last speech 
at Buffalo he gave mature expression to his views, which 
for one who had been a leader of protectionists showed him 
to have taken advanced ground. "We find our long-time 
principles echoed," declared the Nation. McKinley's man- 
ner of developing foreign trade was not that of the tariff 
reformers, for he proposed to bring this about by a variety 
of reciprocity treaties; but it was important that he recog- 
nized the sound economic principle that if we are to sell to 
foreign countries we must buy from them also. That 
McKinley had a strong hold on the country is indisputable 
from the unanimous renomination by his party and his 
triumphant reelection, and it was a step toward commer- 
cial freedom that he who more than all other men had the 
ear of the country and who had been an arch-protectionist 
should advocate the exchange of commodities with foreign 
lands. Economists do not educate the mass of voters, but 
men like McKinley do, and these sentences of his were read 
and pondered by millions: ''A system which provides a 
mutual exchange of commodities is manifestly essential to 
the continued and healthful growth of our export trade. 
We must not repose in fancied security that we can forever 
sell everything and buy little or nothing. If such a thing 
were possible it would not be best for us or for those with 
whom we deal." It is useless to speculate on what would 
have been the result had McKinley lived. Those who con- 
sidered him a weak President aver that when he encountered 
opposition in Congress from interests which were seemingly 
menaced, he would have yielded and abandoned reciprocity. 
Others believe that he understood the question thoroughly 
and that his arguments would in the end have prevailed 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 231 

with Congress ; yielding, perhaps, in points of detail he would 
have secured the adoption of the essential part of his policy. 

After his election McKinley became a believer in the gold 
standard and urged proper legislation upon Congress. It 
is to his credit and to that of Congress that on March 14, 
1900, a bill became a law which establishes the gold standard 
and puts it out of the power of any President to place the 
country upon a silver basis by a simple direction to his 
Secretary of the Treasury, which could have been done in 
1897. As it has turned out, it was fortunate that there was 
no undue haste in this financial legislation. A better act 
was obtained than would have been possible in the first two 
years of McKinley's administration. The reaction from the 
crisis following the panic of 1893 had arrived, made sure 
by the result of the election of 1896 ; and the prosperity had 
become a telling argument in favor of the gold standard 
with the people and with Congress. 

McKinley was essentially adapted for a peace minister, 
but under him came war. Opinions of him will differ, not 
only according to one's sentiments on war and imperialism, 
but according to one's ideal of what a President should be. 
Let us make a comparison which shall not include Wash- 
ington, for the reason that under him the country had not 
become the pure democracy it is at the present day. Of 
such a democracy it seems to me that Lincoln is the ideal 
President, in that he led public sentiment, represented it, 
and followed it. "I claim not to have controlled events," 
he said, ''but confess plainly that events have controlled 
me." During his term of office he was one day called ''very 
weak," and the next "a tyrant" ; but when his whole work 
was done, a careful survey of it could bring one only to the 
conclusion that he knew when to follow and when to lead. 
He was in complete touch with popular sentiment, and 



232 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

divined with nicety when he could take a step in advance. 
He made an effort to keep on good terms with Congress, and 
he differed with that body reluctantly, although, when the 
necessity came, decisively. While he had consideration 
for those who did not agree with him, and while he acted 
always with a regard to proportion, he was nevertheless a 
strong and self-confident executive. Now Cleveland did 
not comprehend popular opinion as did Lincoln. In him 
the desire to lead was paramount, to the exclusion at times 
of a proper consideration for Congress and the people. It 
has been said by one of his political friends that he used the 
same energy and force in deciding a small matter as a great 
one, and he alienated senators, congressmen, and other 
supporters by an unyielding disposition when no principle 
was involved. He did not possess the gracious quality of 
Lincoln, who yielded in small things that he might prevail 
in great ones. Yet for this quality of sturdy insistence on 
his own idea Cleveland has won admiration from a vast 
number of independent thinkers. Temperaments such as 
these are not in sympathy with McKinley, who represents 
another phase of Lincoln's genius. The controlling idea of 
McKinley probably was that as he was elected by the people 
he should represent them. He did not believe that, if a 
matter were fully and fairly presented, the people would 
go wrong. At times he felt he should wait for their sober, 
second thought, but if, after due consideration, the people 
spoke, it was his duty to carry out their will. Unques- 
tionably if the Cleveland and McKinley qualities can be 
happily combined as they were in Lincoln, the nearest pos- 
sible approach to the ideal ruler is the result. One Lincoln, 
though, in a century, is all that any country can expect: 
and there is a place in our polity for either the Cleveland or 
the McKinley type of executive. So it seemed to the makers 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 233 

of the Constitution. ''The republican principle," wrote 
Hamilton in the Federalist, ''demands that the deliberate 
sense of the community should govern the conduct of those 
to whom they intrust the management of their affairs." 
"But," he said in the same essay, "however inclined we 
might be to insist upon an unbounded complaisance in the 
executive to the inclinations of the people, we can with no 
propriety contend for a like complaisance to the humors of 
the legislature. . . . The executive should be in a situa- 
tion to dare to act his own opinion with vigor and decision." 
It is frequently remarked that no President since Lincoln 
had so thorough a comprehension of public sentiment as 
McKinley. This knowledge and his theory of action, if I 
have divined it aright, are an explanation of his course in 
regard to the Spanish War and the taking of the Philippines. 
It does not fall to me to discuss in this article these two ques- 
tions, nor do I feel certain that all the documents necessary 
to a fair judgment are accessible to the public, but I can 
show what was McKinley's attitude toward them by report- 
ing a confidential conversation he had on May 2, 1899, with 
Mr. Henry S. Pritchett, president of the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology, who made a record of it the day 
afterward. The President, Mr. Pritchett relates, spoke of 
the "war and of his own responsibility, and the way in 
which he has gradually come to have his present position 
with respect to the Philippines. The talk was started by 
my reminding him of the fact that just a year ago that morn- 
ing, on May 2, 1898, I had come into his room with a map 
of Manila and Cavite on a large scale — the first time he had 
seen such a map — and from this he drifted into a most 
serious and interesting talk of his own place in tlie history of 
the past twelve months. He described his efforts to avert 
the war, how he had carried the effort to the point of rup- 



234 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

ture with his party, then came the Maine incident, and, 
finally, a declaration of war over all efforts to stem the tide. 
Then he spoke of Cuba and Porto Rico and the Philippines, 
related at some length the correspondence he had had with 
the Paris Commission, how he had been gradually made to 
feel in his struggling for the right ground that first Luzon 
and finally all the Philippines must be kept. He then went 
on to indicate his belief that Providence had led in all this 
matter, that to him the march of events had been so irresis- 
tible that nothing could turn them aside. Nobody, he said, 
could have tried harder than he to be rid of the burden of 
the Philippines, and yet the trend of events had been such 
that it seemed impossible to escape this duty. He finally 
came to speak with more emotion than I have ever seen him 
exhibit, and no one could doubt the sincerity of the man." 

Of McKinley's achievements in the field of diplomacy 
Secretary Hay in his memorial address spoke with knowl- 
edge and in words of high praise. Sometimes the expression 
of a careful foreign observer anticipates the judgment of 
posterity, and with that view the words of the Spectator,^ 
in an article on the presidential election of 1900, are worth 
quoting: ^'We believe that Mr. McKinley and the wise 
statesman who is his Secretary of State, Colonel Hay, are 
administrators of a high order. They have learnt their 
business thoroughly, hold all the strings of policy in their 
hands." 

Opinions will differ as to the impress McKinley has left 
on the presidential office. It is the judgment of two men of 
large knowledge of American history and present affairs 
that no President since Jefferson has been so successful in 
getting Congress to adopt the positive measures he desired. 

Of the administration of Theodore Roosevelt it would be 
1 July 14, 1900. 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 235 

neither proper nor wise for me to speak in other terms than 
those of expectatit)n and prophecy. But of Mr. Roosevelt 
himself something may be said. His birth, breeding, edu- 
cation, and social advantages have been of the best. He has 
led an industrious and useful life. As an American citizen 
we are all proud of him, and when he reached the presi- 
dential office by a tragedy that nobody deplored more than 
he, every one wished him success. His transparent honesty 
and sincerity are winning qualities, and in the opinion of 
Burke especially important in him who is the ruler of a na- 
tion. ^' Plain good intention," he wrote, ''which is as easily 
discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at 
last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the government of 
mankind." To these qualities, and to a physical and moral 
courage that can never be questioned, Mr. Roosevelt adds 
a large intelligence and, as his books show, a power of com- 
bination of ideas and cohesive thought. Moreover, he has 
had a good political training, and he has the faculty of 
writing his political papers in a pregnant and forcible literary 
style. He is fit for what Mr. Bryce calls "the greatest office 
in the world, unless we except the Papacy." His ideals are 
Washington and Lincoln. "I like to see in my mind's eye," 
he said, "the gaunt form of Lincoln stalking through these 
halls." "To gratify the hopes, secure the reverence, and 
sustain the dignity of the nation," said Justice Story, "the 
presidential office should always be occupied by a man of 
elevated talents, of ripe virtues, of incorruptible integrity, 
and of tried patriotism ; one who shall forget his own inter- 
ests and remember that he represents not a party but the 
whole nation." These qualities Theodore Roosevelt has. 
Whether he shall in action carry out the other requirements 
of Justice Story may only be judged after he shall have 
retired to private life. 



236 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Mr. Roosevelt merits the encouragement and sympathy 
of all lovers of good government, and he is entitled, as 
indeed is every President, to considerate and forbearing 
criticism. For, ardently desired as the office is, it is a hard 
place to fill. Through the kindness of President Roosevelt, 
I have been enabled to observe the daily routine of his work, 
and I am free to say that from the business point of view, 
no man better earns his pay than does he. Mr. Bryce re- 
marks that a good deal of the President's work is like that 
of the manager of a railway. So far as concerns the con- 
sultation with heads of departments, prompt decisions, 
and the disposition of daily matters, the comparison is apt, 
if a great American railway and a manager like Thomas A. 
Scott are borne in mind. But the railway manager's 
labor is done in comparative privacy, he can be free from 
interruption and dispose of his own time in a systematic 
manner. That is impossible for the President during the 
session of Congress. Office-seekers themselves do not 
trouble the President so much as in former days ; they may 
be referred to the heads of the departments ; and, moreover, 
the introduction of competitive examinations and the merit 
system has operated as a relief to the President and his 
Cabinet officers. But hearing the recommendations by 
senators and congressmen of their friends for offices con- 
sumes a large amount of time. There are, as Senator Lodge 
has kindly informed me, 4818 presidential offices exclusive 
of 4000 presidential post offices; in addition there are 
army and naval officers to be appointed. The proper selec- 
tion in four years of the number of men these figures imply 
is in itself no small labor; it would by a railway manager 
be considered an onerous and exacting business. But the 
railway manager may hear the claims of applicants in his 
own proper way, and to prevent encroachments on his time 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 237 

may give the candidates or their friends a curt dismissaL 
The President may not treat senators and representatives 
in that manner, nor would he desire to do so, for the inter- 
course between them and the executive is of great value. 
''The President," wrote John Sherman, ''should 'touch 
elbows' with Congress." There are important legislative 
measures to be discussed in a frank interchange of opinion. 
Senators and representatives are a guide to the President 
in their estimates of public sentiment; often they exert 
an influence over him, and he is dependent on them for the 
carrying out of any policy he may have at heart. While 
the encroachments on the President's time are great, I am 
convinced that no plan should be adopted which should 
curtail the unconventional and frank interchange of views 
between the President and members of the National Legis- 
lature. The rehef lies with the pubhc. Much of the Presi- 
dent's time is taken up with receptions of the friends of 
senators and representatives, of members of conventions 
and learned bodies meeting in Washington, of deputations 
of school-teachers and the like who have gone to the capital 
for a holiday: all desire to pay their respects to the Chief 
Magistrate. Undoubtedly, if he could have a quiet talk 
with most of these people, it would be of value, but the con- 
ventional shaking of hands and the "I am glad to see you" 
is not a satisfaction great enough to the recipients to pay 
for what it costs the President in time and the expenditure 
of nervous force. He should have time for deliberation. 
The railway manager can closet himself when he likes: 
that should be the privilege of the President ; yet on a cer- 
tain day last April, when he wished to have a long confi- 
dential talk with his Secretary of War, this was only to be 
contrived by the two taking a long horseback ride in the 
country. It is difficult for the President to refuse to see 



238 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

these good, patriotic, and learned people ; and senators and 
representatives like to gratify their constituents. The 
remedy lies with the public in denying themselves this 
pleasant feature of a visit to Washington. One does not 
call on the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad or the 
president of the New York Central Railroad in business 
hours unless for business purposes ; and this should be the 
rule observed by citizens of the United States toward the 
President. The weekly public receptions are no longer 
held. All these other receptions and calls simply for shak- 
ing hands and wishing him God-speed should no longer be 
asked for. For the President has larger and more serious 
work than the railway manager and should have at least as 
much time for thought and deliberation. 

Moreover, the work of the railway manager is done in 
secret. Fiercer by far than the light which beats upon the 
throne is that which beats upon the White House. The 
people are eager to know the President's thoughts and plans, 
and an insistent press endeavors to satisfy them. Consid- 
ering the conditions under which the President does his 
work, the wonder is not that he makes so many mistakes, 
but that he makes so few. There is no railway or business 
manager or college president who has not more time to him- 
self for the reflection necessary to the maturing of large and 
correct policies. I chanced to be in the President's room 
when he dictated the rough draft of his famous dispatch to 
General Chaffee respecting torture in the Philippines. While 
he was dictating, two or three cards were brought in, also 
some books with a request for the President's autograph, 
and there were some other interruptions. While the dis- 
patch as it went out in its revised form could not be im- 
proved, a President cannot expect to be always so happy 
in dictating dispatches in the midst of distractions. Office 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 239 

work of far-reaching importance should be done in the closet. 
Certainly no monarch or minister in Europe does adminis- 
trative work under such unfavorable conditions; indeed, 
this public which exacts so much of the President's time 
should in all fairness be considerate in its criticism. 

No one, I think, would care to have abated the fearless 
political criticism which has in this country and in England 
attained to the highest point ever reached. From the nature 
of things the press must comment promptly and without 
the full knowledge of conditions that might alter its judg- 
ments. But on account of the necessary haste of its ex- 
pressions, the writers should avoid extravagant language and 
the too ready imputation of bad motives to the public serv- 
ants. ^'It is strange that men cannot allow others to differ 
with them without charging corruption as the cause of the 
difference," are the plaintive words of Grant during a con- 
fidential conversation with his Secretary of State. 

The contrast between the savage criticism of Cleveland 
and Harrison while each occupied the presidential chair 
and the respect each enjoyed from political opponents after 
retiring to private life is an effective illustration of the lesson 
I should like to teach. At the time of Harrison's death 
people spoke from their hearts and said, '^Well done, good 
and faithful servant." A fine example of political criticism 
in a time of great excitement were two articles by Mr, Carl 
Schurz in Harper^s Weekly during the Venezuela crisis. 
Mr. Schurz was a supporter and political friend of Cleveland, 
but condemned his Venezuela message. In the articles to 
which I refer he was charitable in feeling and moderate in 
tone, and though at the time I heard the term ^'wishy- 
washy" applied to one of them, I suspect that Mr. Schurz 
now looks back with satisfaction to his reserve; and those 
of us who used more forcible language in regard to the 



240 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

same incident may well wish that we had emulated his 
moderation. 

The presidential office differs from all other political 
offices in the world, and has justified the hopes of its crea- 
tors. It has not realized their fears, one of which was ex- 
pressed by Hamilton in the Federalist. '^A man raised from 
the station of a private citizen to the rank of Chief Magis- 
trate," he wrote, '^ possessed of a moderate or slender for- 
tune, and looking forward to a period not very remote, when 
he may probably be obliged to return to the station from 
which he was taken, might sometimes be under temptations 
to sacrifice his duty to his interest, which it would require 
superlative virtue to withstand. An avaricious man might 
be tempted to betray the interests of the state to the ac- 
quisition of wealth. An ambitious man might make his 
own aggrandizement, by the aid of a foreign power, the 
price of his treachery to his constituents." ^ From dangers 
of this sort the political virtue which we inherited from our 
English ancestors has preserved us. We may fairly main- 
tain that the creation and administration of our presiden- 
tial office have added something to political history, and 
when we contrast in character and ability the men who have 
filled it with the monarchs of England and of France, we 
may have a feeling of just pride. Mr. Bryce makes a sug- 
gestive comparison in ability of our Presidents to the 
prime ministers of England, awarding the palm to the 
Englishmen,^ and from his large knowledge of both coun- 
tries and impartial judgment we may readily accept his 
conclusion. It is, however, a merit of our Constitution that 
as great ability is not required for its chief executive office 
as is demanded in England. The prime minister must have 

^ See also the Federalist (Lodge's edition), 452. Bryce, Studies in History 
and Jurisprudence^ 308. ^ American Commonwealth, I, 80. 



THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 241 

a talent for both administration and debate, which is a 
rare combination of powers, and if he be chosen from the 
House of Commons, it may happen that too much stress will 
be laid upon oratory, or the power of making ready replies 
to the attacks of the opposition. It is impossible to conceive 
of Washington defending his policy in the House or the Sen- 
ate from a fire of questions and cross-questions. Lincoln 
might have developed this quality of a prime minister, but 
his replies and sallies of wit to put to confusion his oppo- 
nents would have lacked the dignity his state papers 
and confidential letters possess. Hayes and Cleveland were 
excellent administrators, but neither could have reached 
his high position had the debating ability of a prime min- 
ister been required. On the other hand, Garfield, Harrison, 
and McKinley would have been effective speakers in either 
the House or the Senate. 

An American may judge his own country best from Eu- 
ropean soil, impregnated as he there is with European ideas. 
Twice have I been in Europe during Cleveland's administra- 
tion, twice during McKinley's, once during Roosevelt's. 
During the natural process of comparison, when one must 
recognize in many things the distinct superiority of Eng- 
land, Germany, and France, I have never had a feeling other 
than high respect for each one of these Presidents; and 
taking it by and large, in the endeavor to consider fairly 
the hits and misses of all, I have never had any reason to 
feel that the conduct of our national government has been 
inferior to that of any one of these highly civilized powers. 



A REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINIS- 
TRATION 

Address delivered at the annual meeting of the Graduate School of 
Arts and Sciences, and the Graduate Schools of Applied Science 
and Business Administration, Harvard University, on October 8, 
1908 ; printed in the Century Magazine for October, 1909. 



A REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINIS- 
TRATION 

Many of our Presidents have been inaugurated under 
curious and trying circumstances, but no one of them ex- 
cept Hayes has taken the oath of office when there was a 
cloud on his title. Every man who had voted for Tilden, — 
whose popular vote exceeded that of Hayes by 264,000, — 
believed that Hayes had reached his high place by means of 
fraud. Indeed, some of the Hayes voters shared this belief, 
and stigmatized as monstrous the action of the Louisiana 
returning board in awarding the electoral vote of Louisiana 
to Hayes. The four men, three of them dishonest and the 
fourth incompetent, who constituted this returning board, 
rejected, on the ground of intimidation of negro voters, 
eleven thousand votes that had been cast in due form for 
Tilden. In the seventh volume of my history I have told 
the story of the compromise in the form of the Electoral 
Commission which passed on the conflicting claims and ad- 
judged the votes of the disputed states, notably Florida 
and Louisiana, to Hayes, giving him a majority of one in 
the electoral college, thus making him President. When 
the count was completed and the usual declaration made, 
Hayes had no choice but to abide by the decision. Duty 
to his country and to his party, the Republican, required 
his acceptance of the office, and there is no reason for think- 
ing that he had any doubts regarding his proper course. 
His legal title was perfect, but his moral title was unsound, 
and it added to the difficulty of his situation that the oppo- 
sition, the Democrats, had a majority in the House of Rep- 

245 



246 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

resentatives. None but a determined optimist could have 
predicted anything but failure for an administration begin- 
ning under such conditions. 

Hayes was an Ohio man, and we in Ohio now watched 
his successive steps with keen interest. We knew him as a 
man of high character, with a fine sense of honor, but we 
placed no great faith in his ability. He had added to his 
reputation by the political campaign that he had made for 
governor, in 1875, against the Democrats under William 
Allen, who demanded an inflation of the greenback currency. 
He took an uncompromising stand for sound money, al- 
though that cause was unpopular in Ohio, and he spoke from 
the stump unremittingly and fearlessly, although over- 
shadowed by the greater ability and power of expression of 
Senator Sherman and of Carl Schurz, who did yeoman's 
service for the Republicans in this campaign. Senator 
Sherman had suggested Hayes as candidate for President, 
and the nomination by the Republican national convention 
had come to him in June, 1876. While his letter of accept- 
ance may not have surprised his intimate friends, it was a 
revelation to most of us from its outspoken and common- 
sense advocacy of civil service reform, and it gave us the 
first glimmering that in Rutherford B. Hayes the Republi- 
cans had for standard bearer a man of more than respect- 
able ability. 

His inaugural address confirmed this impression. He 
spoke with dignity and sympathy of the disputed Presi- 
dency, promised a liberal policy toward the Southern states, 
and declared that a reform in our civil service was a 
''paramount necessity." He chose for his Cabinet men in 
sympathy with his high ideals. William M. Evarts, the Sec- 
retary of State, was one of the ablest lawyers in the 
country. He had been one of the leading counsel in the 



REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION 247 

defense of President Johnson in the impeachment trial, 
and had managed the RepubHcan cause before the Elec- 
toral Commission with adroitness and zeal, John Sherman, 
the Secretary of the Treasury, was the most capable finan- 
cier in public life. Carl Schurz, the Secretary of the In- 
terior, was an aggressive and uncompromising reformer, 
who had served the Republican party well in the campaigns 
of 1875 and 1876. If these three men could work together 
under Hayes, the United States need envy the governors of 
no other country. They were in the brilliant but solid 
class, were abreast of the best thought of their time, had a 
solemn sense of duty, and believed in righteous government. 
Devens, the Attorney-General, had served with credit in the 
army and had held the honorable position of Justice of the 
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Thompson of 
Indiana, Secretary of the Navy, was a political appoint- 
ment due to the influence of Senator Morton, but, all things 
considered, it was not a bad choice. McCrary of Iowa, as 
Secretary of War, had been a useful member of the House 
of Representatives. The Postmaster-General was Key of 
Tennessee, who had served in the Confederate army and 
voted for Tilden. This appointment was not so genuine a 
recognition of the South as would have been made if Hayes 
could have carried out his first intention, which was the ap- 
pointment of General Joseph E. Johnston as Secretary of 
War. Considering that Johnston had surrendered the second 
great army of the Confederacy only twelve years before, the 
thought was possible only to a magnanimous nature, and in 
the inner circle of Hayes's counselors obvious and grave 
objections were urged. General Sherman doubted the wis- 
dom of the proposed appointment, although he said that as 
General of the army he would be entirely content to receive 
the President's orders through his old antagonist. Although 



248 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

the appointment of Johnston would have added strength, 
the Cabinet as finally made up was strong, and the selection 
of such advisers created a favorable impression upon the in- 
telligent sentiment of the country ; it was spoken of as the 
ablest Cabinet since Washington's. 

A wise inaugural address and an able Cabinet made a good 
beginning, but before the harmonious cooperation of these 
extraordinary men could be developed a weighty question, 
which brooked no delay, had to be settled. The Stevens- 
Sumner plan of the reconstruction of the South on the basis 
of universal negro suffrage and military support of the gov- 
ernments thus constituted had failed. One by one in 
various ways the Southern states had recovered home rule 
until, on the inauguration of Hayes, carpet-bag negro gov- 
ernments existed in only two states. South Carolina and 
Louisiana. In both of these the Democrats maintained 
that their candidates for governor had been lawfully elected. 
The case of South Carolina presented no serious difficulty. 
Hayes electors had been rightfully chosen, and so had the 
Democratic governor, Hampton. But Chamberlain, the 
Republican candidate, had a claim based on the exclusion 
of the votes of two counties by the board of state canvassers. 
After conferences between each of the claimants and the 
President, the question was settled in favor of the Democrat, 
which was the meaning of the withdrawal of the United 
States troops from the State House in Columbia. 

The case of Louisiana was much more troublesome. 
Packard, the Republican candidate for governor, had re- 
ceived as many votes as Hayes, and logic seemed to require 
that, if Hayes be President, Packard should be governor. 
While the question was pending, Blaine said in the Senate : 
''You discredit Packard, and you discredit Hayes. You 
hold that Packard is not the legal governor of Louisiana, 



REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION 249 

and President Hayes has no title." And the other leaders 
of the Republican party, for the most part, held this view. 
To these and their followers Blaine applied the name ^^Stal- 
warts/' stiff partisans, who did not believe in surrendering 
the hold of the Republicans on the Southern states. 

Between the policies of a continuance of the support of 
the Republican party in Louisiana or its withdrawal, a weak 
man would have allowed things to drift, while a strong man 
of the Conkling and Chandler type would have sustained the 
Packard government with the whole force at his command. 
Hayes acted slowly and cautiously, asked for and received 
much good counsel, and in the end determined to withdraw 
the United States troops from the immediate vicinity of the 
State House in Louisiana. The Packard government fell, 
and the Democrats took possession. The lawyers could 
furnish cogent reasons why Packard was not entitled to the 
governorship, although the electoral vote of Louisiana had 
been counted for Hayes; but the Stalwarts maintained 
that no legal quibble could varnish over so glaring an in- 
consistency. Indeed, it was one of those illogical acts, so 
numerous in English and American history, that resolve 
difficulties, when a rigid adherence to logic would tend to 
foment trouble. 

The inaugural address and the distinctively reform Cabi- 
net did not suit the party workers, and when the President 
declined to sustain the Packard government in Louisiana, 
disapproval was succeeded by rage. In six weeks after his 
inauguration Hayes was without a party; that is to say, 
the men who carried on the organization were bitterly op- 
posed to his policy, and they made much more noise than 
the independent thinking voters who believed that a man 
had arisen after their own hearts. Except from the South- 
ern wing, he received little sympathy from the Democratic 



250 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

party. In their parlance, fraud was written on his brow. 
He had the honor and perquisites of office which were right- 
fully theirs. 

Once the troops were withdrawn from South Carolina and 
Louisiana, no backward step was possible, and although 
Hayes would have liked congressional support and sympathy 
for his act, this was not necessary. The next most impor- 
tant question of his administration related to finance. He 
and his Secretary of the Treasury would have been gratified 
by an obedient majority in Congress at their back. Presi- 
dents before and after Hayes have made a greater or less 
employment of their patronage to secure the passage of 
their favorite measures, but Hayes immediately relinquished 
that power by taking a decided position for a civil service 
based on merit. In a little over a month after the with- 
drawal of the troops from the immediate vicinity of the State 
House in Louisiana, he announced his policy in a letter to 
his Secretary of the Treasury. ''It is my wish," he wrote, 
''that the collection of the revenues should be free from 
partisan control, and organized on a strictly business basis, 
with the same guaranties for efficiency and fidelity in the 
selection of the chief and subordinate officers that would be 
required by a prudent merchant. Party leaders should 
have no more influence in appointments than other equally 
respectable citizens. No assessments for political purposes 
on officers or subordinates should be allowed. No useless 
officer or employee should be retained. No officer should 
be required or permitted to take part in the management of 
political organizations, caucuses, conventions, or election 
campaigns." The mandatory parts of this letter he incor- 
porated in an order to Federal office-holders, adding: "This 
rule is applicable to every department of the civil service. 
It should be understood by every officer of the general gov- 



REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION 251 

ernment that he is expected to conform his conduct to its 
requirements." 

It must be a source of gratification to the akmmi and 
faculty of Harvard College that its president and governing 
boards were, in June, 1877, in the judicious minority, and 
recognized their appreciation of Hayes by conferring upon 
him its highest honorary degree. Schurz, who had received 
his LL.D. the year before, accompanied Hayes to Cam- 
bridge, and, in his Harvard speech at Commencement, gave 
his forcible and sympathetic approval of the ''famous order 
of the President," as it had now come to be called. 

A liberal and just Southern policy, the beginning of a 
genuine reform in the civil service and the resumption of 
specie payments, are measures which distinguish and glorify 
President Hayes's administration, but in July, 1877, public 
attention was diverted from all these by a movement which 
partook of the nature of a social uprising. The depression 
following the panic of 1873 had been widespread and severe. 
The slight revival of business resulting from the Centen- 
nial Exposition of 1876 and the consequent large passenger 
traffic had been succeeded by a reaction in 1877 that brought 
business men to the verge of despair. Failures of merchants 
and manufacturers, stoppage of factories, diminished traffic 
on the railroads, railroad bankruptcies and receiverships, 
threw a multitude of laborers out of employment ; and those 
fortunate enough to retain their jobs were less steadily em- 
ployed, and were subject to reductions in wages. 

The state of railroad transportation was deplorable. 
The competition of the trunk lines, as the railroads running 
from Chicago to the seaboard were called, was sharp, and, 
as there was not business enough for all, the cutting of 
through freight rates caused such business to be done at an 
actual loss, while the through passenger transportation 



252 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

afforded little profit. Any freight agent knew the remedy: 
an increase of freight rates by agreement or through a sys- 
tem of pooling earnings. Agreements were made, but not 
honestly kept, and, after a breach of faith, the fight was 
renewed with increased fury. As the railroad managers 
thought that they could not increase their gross earnings, 
they resolved on decreasing their expenses, and somewhat 
hastily and jauntily they announced a reduction of ten per 
cent in the wages of their employees. 

This was resisted. Trouble first began on the Baltimore 
and Ohio Railroad, where the men not only struck against 
the reduction, but prevented other men from taking their 
places, and stopped by force the running of trains. The 
militia of West Virginia was inadequate to cope with the situ- 
ation, and the governor of that state called on the President 
for troops, which were sent with a beneficial effect. But 
the trouble spread to Maryland, and a conflict in Baltimore 
between the mihtia and rioters in sympathy with the strikers 
resulted in a number of killed and wounded. The next day, 
Saturday, July 21, a riot in Pittsburg caused the most pro- 
found sensation in the country since the draft riots of the 
Civil War. The men on the Pennsylvania and the Pitts- 
burg, Fort AVayne and Chicago railroads, had struck, and 
all freight traffic was arrested. On this day six hundred 
and fifty men of the first division of the Pennsylvania na- 
tional guard at Philadelphia arrived in Pittsburg, and, in the 
attempt to clear the Twenty-eighth Street crossing, they 
replied to the missiles thrown at them by the mob with 
volleys of musketry, killing instantly sixteen of the rioters 
and wounding many. 

Here was cause for exasperation, and a furious mob, com- 
posed of strikers, idle factory hands, and miners, tramps, 
communists, and outcasts, began its work of vengeance and 



REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION 253 

plunder. Possessed of firearms, through breaking into a 
number of gun shops, they attacked the Philadelphia sol- 
diers, who had withdrawn to the railroad roundhouse, and 
a fierce battle ensued. Unable to dislodge the soldiers by 
assault, the rioters attempted to roast them out by setting 
fire to cars of coke saturated with petroleum and pushing 
these down the track against the roundhouse. This even- 
tually forced the soldiers to leave the building, but, though 
pursued by the rioters, they made a good retreat across the 
Allegheny River. The mob, completely beyond control, 
began the destruction of railroad property. The torch was 
applied to two roundhouses, to railroad sheds, shops and 
offices, cars and locomotives. Barrels of spirits, taken from 
the freight cars, and opened and drunk, made demons of 
the men, and the work of plunder and destruction of goods 
in transit went on with renewed fury. 

That Saturday night Pittsburg witnessed a reign of terror. 
On Sunday the rioting and pillage were continued, and in 
the afternoon the Union Depot and Railroad Hotel and an 
elevator near by were burned. Then as the rioters were 
satiated and too drunk to be longer dangerous, the riot 
died out : it was not checked. On Monday, through the 
action of the authorities, armed companies of law-abiding 
citizens, and some faithful companies of the militia, order 
was restored. But meanwhile the strike had spread to a 
large number of other railroads between the seaboard and 
Chicago and St. Louis. Freight traffic was entirely sus- 
pended, and passenger trains were run only on sufferance 
of the strikers. Business was paralyzed, and the condition 
of disorganization and unrest continued throughout the 
month of July. The governors of West Virginia, Mary- 
land, Pennsylvania, and Illinois called upon the President 
for United States troops, which were promptly sent, and in 



254 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Indiana and Missouri they were employed on the demand of 
the United States marshals. Where the regular soldiers 
appeared order was at once restored without bloodshed, and 
it was said that the rioters feared one Federal bayonet more 
than a whole company of militia. The gravity of the situa- 
tion is attested by three proclamations of warning from 
President Ha}' es. 

Strikes had been common in our country, and, while 
serious enough in certain localities, had aroused no general 
concern, but the action of the mob in Baltimore, Pittsburg, 
and Chicago seemed like an attack on society itself, and it 
came like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, startling Ameri- 
cans, who had hugged the delusion that such social upris- 
ings belonged to Europe, and had no reason of being in a 
great, free republic where all men had an equal chance. 
The railroad managers had no idea that they were letting 
loose a slumbering giant when their edict of a ten per cent 
reduction went forth. It was due to the prompt and efficient 
action of the President that order was ultimately restored. 
In the profound and earnest thinking and discussion that 
went on during the rest of the year, whenever thoughtful 
men gathered together, many a grateful word was said of the 
quiet, unassuming man in the White House who saw clearly 
his duty and never faltered in pursuing it. It was seen that 
the Federal government, with a resolute President at its head, 
was a tower of strength in the event of a social uprising. 

In the reform of the civil service Hayes proceeded from 
words to action. He reappointed Thomas L. James as 
postmaster of New York City, who had conducted his office 
on a thorough business basis, and gave him sympathetic 
support. The New York Custom-house had long been a 
political machine in which the interests of politicians had 
been more considered than those of the public it was sup- 



REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION 255 

posed to serve. The President began an investigation of 
it through an impartial commission, and he and Sherman 
came to the conclusion that the renovation desired, in line 
with his letter to the Secretary of the Treasury and his 
order to the Federal officers, could not be effected so long 
as the present collector, Chester A. Arthur, and the naval 
officer, A. B. Cornell, remained in office. Courteous inti- 
mations were sent to them that their resignations were de- 
sired on the ground that new officers could better carry out 
the reform which the President had at heart. Arthur and 
Cornell, under the influence of Senator Conkling, refused to 
resign, and a plain issue was made between the President 
and the New York senator. At the special session of Con- 
gress, in October, 1877, he sent to the Senate nominations 
of new men for these places, but the power of Conkling, 
working through the ''courtesy of the Senate," was suffi- 
cient to procure their rejection; and this was also the 
result when the same nominations were made in December. 
In July, 1878, after the adjournment of Congress, Hayes 
removed Arthur and Cornell, and appointed Merritt and 
Burt in their places. During the following December these 
appointments came before the Senate for confirmation. 
Sherman decided to resign if they were rejected, and he 
made a strong personal appeal to Senators Allison, Windom, 
and Morrill that they should not permit ''the insane hate of 
Conkling" to override the good of the service and the party. 
A seven hours' struggle ensued in the Senate, but Merritt 
and Burt were confirmed by a decisive majority. After 
the confirmation, Hayes wrote to Merritt: "My desire is 
that the office be conducted on strictly business principles 
and according to the rules for the civil service which were 
recommended by the Civil Service Commission in the ad- 
ministration of General Grant." 



256 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

In three of his annual messages, Hayes presented strong 
arguments for a reform in the civil service, and he begged 
Congress, without avail, to make appropriations to sustain 
the Civil Service Commission. He sympathized with and 
supported Schurz in his introduction into the Interior De- 
partment of competitive examinations for appointments 
and promotions, and he himself extended that system to the 
custom-houses and post-offices of the larger cities. 

All that was accomplished in this direction was due to his 
efforts and those of his Cabinet. He received neither sym- 
pathy nor help from Congress ; indeed, he met with great 
opposition from his own party. A picture not without 
humor is Hayes reading, as his justification, to the Repub- 
lican remonstrants against his policy of appointments the 
strong declaration for a civil service based on merit in the 
Republican platform, on which he had stood as candidate 
for President. Though his preaching did not secure the 
needed legislation from Congress, it produced a marked 
effect on public sentiment. 

The organization of civil service reform associations began 
under Hayes. The New York association was begun in 
1877, reorganized three years later, and soon had a large 
national membership, which induced the formation of other 
state associations ; and although the national civil service 
reform league was not formed until after his term of office 
expired, the origin of the society may be safely referred to 
his influence. In the melioration of the public service 
which has been so conspicuously in operation since 1877, 
Hayes must be rated the pioneer President. Some of 
Grant's efforts in this direction were well meant, but he had 
no fundamental appreciation of the importance of the ques- 
tion or enthusiasm for the work, and, in a general way, it 
may be said that he left the civil service in a demoralized 



REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION 257 

condition. How pregnant was Hayes's remark in his last 
annual message, and what a text it has been for many homi- 
lies ! ''My views," he wrote, ''concerning the dangers of 
patronage or appointments for personal or partisan con- 
siderations have been strengthened by my observation and 
experience in the executive office, and I believe these dan- 
gers threaten the stability of the government." 

The brightest page in the history of the Republican party 
since the Civil War tells of its work in the cause of sound 
finance, and no administration is more noteworthy than 
that of Hayes. Here again the work was done by the Presi- 
dent and his Cabinet in the face of a determined opposition 
in Congress. During the first two years of his administra- 
tion, the Democrats had a majority in the House, and during 
the last two a majority in both the House and the Senate. 
The Republican party was sounder than the Democratic on 
the resumption of specie payments and in the advocacy of a 
correct money standard, but Hayes had by no means all of 
his own party at his back. Enough Republicans, however, 
were of his way of thinking to prevent an irremediable 
inflation of either greenbacks or silver. 

The credit for what was accomplished in finance belongs 
in the main to John Sherman, a great financier and consum- 
mate statesman ; but he had the constant sympathy and 
support of the President. It was their custom to take long 
drives together every Sunday afternoon and discuss system- 
atically and thoroughly the affairs of the Treasury and the 
official functions of the President. No President ever had 
a better counselor than Sherman, no Secretary of the Treas- 
ury more sympathetic and earnest support than was given 
by Hayes. Sherman refunded 845 millions of the public 
debt at a lower rate of interest, showing in his negotiations 
with bankers a remarkable combination of business and 



258 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

political ability. Cool, watchful, and confident, he grasped 
the point of view of New York and London financial syn- 
dicates, and to that interested and somewhat narrow vision 
he joined the intelligence and foresight of a statesman. 
Sherman brought about the resumption of specie payments 
on the 1st of January, 1879, the date fixed in the bill of which 
he was the chief author and which, four years before, he had 
carried through the Senate. It was once the fashion of his 
opponents to discredit his work, and, emphasizing the large 
crop of 1878 and the European demand for our breadstuffs, 
to declare that resumption was brought about by Provi- 
dence and not by John Sherman. No historian of American 
finance can fail to see how important is the part often played 
by bountiful nature, but it is to the lasting merit of Sher- 
man and Hayes that, in the dark years of 1877 and 1878, 
with cool heads and unshaken faith, they kept the country 
in the path of financial safety and honor despite bitter oppo- 
sition and clamorous abuse. 

These two years formed a part of my own business career, 
and I can add my vivid recollection to my present study of 
the period. As values steadily declined and losses rather 
than profits in business became the rule, the depression 
and even despair of business men and manufacturers can 
hardly be exaggerated. The daily list of failures and bank- 
ruptcies was appalling. How often one heard that iron 
and coal and land were worth too little and money too much, 
that only the bondholder could be happy, for his interest 
was sure and the purchasing power of his money great ! 
In August, 1878, when John Sherman went to Toledo to 
speak to a gathering three thousand strong, he was 
greeted with such cries as, ''You are responsible for all 
the failures in the country"; ''You work to the interest 
of the capitalist"; "Capitalists own you, John Sherman, 



REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION 259 

and you rob the poor widows and orphans to make 
them rich." 

By many the resumption of specie payments was deemed 
impossible. The most charitable of Sherman's opponents 
looked upon him as an honest but visionary enthusiast who 
would fail in his policy and be ''the deadest man politically" 
in the country. Others deemed resumption possible only 
by driving to the wall a majority of active business men. 
It was this sentiment which gave strength to the majority 
in the House of Representatives, which was opposed to any 
contraction of the greenback currency and in favor of the 
free coinage of silver, and of making it likewise a full legal 
tender. Most of these members of Congress were sincere, 
and thought that they were asking no more than justice 
for the trader, the manufacturer, and the laborer. The 
''Ohio idea" was originally associated with an inflation of 
the paper currency, but by extension it came to mean an 
abundance of cheap money, whether paper or silver. Pro- 
posed legislation, with this as its aim, was very popular in 
Ohio, but, despite the intense feeling against the Presi- 
dent's and Secretary's policy in their own state and generally 
throughout the West, Hayes and Sherman maintained it 
consistently, and finally brought about the resumption of 
specie payments. 

In their way of meeting the insistent demand for the 
remonetization of silver Hayes and Sherman differed. In 
November, 1877, the House of Representatives, under a 
suspension of the rules, passed by a vote of 163 to 34 a bill 
for the free coinage of the 412^ grain silver dollar, making 
that dollar likewise a legal tender for all debts and dues. 
The Senate was still Republican, but the Republican sena- 
tors were by no means unanimous for the gold standard. 
Sherman became convinced that, although the free-silver 



260 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

bill could not pass the Senate, something must nevertheless 
be done for silver, and, in cooperation with Senator AUison, 
he was instrumental in the adoption of the compromise 
which finally became law. This remonetized silver, provid- 
ing for the purchase of not less than two million dollars' worth 
of silver bullion per month, nor more than four millions, 
and for its coinage into 412^ grain silver dollars. Hayes 
vetoed this bill, sending a sound and manly message to the 
House of Representatives ; but Congress passed it over his 
veto by a decided majority. 

The regard for John Sherman's ability in Ohio was un- 
bounded, and it was generally supposed that in all financial 
affairs, as well as in many others, he dominated Hayes. I 
shared that opinion until I learned indirectly from John 
Hay, who was first assistant Secretary of State and intimate 
in inner administration circles, that this was not true ; that 
Hayes had decided opinions of his own and did not hesitate 
to differ with his Secretary of the Treasury. Nevertheless, 
not until John Sherman's '^Recollections" were published 
was it generally known, I believe, that Sherman had a share 
in the Allison compromise, and did not approve of the Presi- 
dent's veto of the bill remonetizing silver. 

The Federal control of congressional and presidential 
elections, being a part of the Reconstruction legislation, 
was obnoxious to the Democrats, and they attempted to 
abrogate it by "riders" attached to several appropriation 
bills, especially that providing for the army. While the 
Senate remained Republican, there was chance for an ac- 
commodation between the President and the Senate on one 
side and the House on the other. Two useful compromises 
were made, the Democrats yielding in one case, the Repub- 
licans in the other. But in 1879, when both the House and 
the Senate were Democratic, a sharp contest began between 



REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION 261 

Congress and the executive, the history of which is written 
in seven veto messages. For lack of appropriations to 
carry on the government, the President called an extra 
session of Congress in the first year of his administration and 
another in 1879, which was a remarkable record of extra 
sessions in a time of peace. The Democratic House passed 
a resolution for the appointment of a committee to investi- 
gate Hayes's title and aroused some alarm lest an effort 
might be made ^'to oust President Hayes and inaugurate 
Tilden." Although this alarm was stilled less than a month 
later by a decisive vote of the House, the action and inves- 
tigation were somewhat disquieting. 

Thus Hayes encountered sharp opposition from the Demo- 
crats, who frequently pointed their arguments by declaring 
that he held his place by means of fraud. He received 
sympathy from hardly any of the leaders of his own party 
in Congress, and met with open condemnation from the 
Stalwarts ; yet he pursued his course with steadiness and 
equanimity, and was happy in his office. His serene amia- 
bility and hopefulness, especially in regard to affairs in 
the Southern states, were a source of irritation to the Stal- 
warts ; but it was the serenity of a man who felt himself 
full}'' equal to his responsibilities. 

In his inaugural address, Hayes contributed an addi- 
tion to our political idiom, ''He serves his party best who 
serves the country best." His administration was a striking 
illustration of this maxim. When he became President, the 
Republican party was in a demoralized condition, but, de- 
spite the factional criticism to which he was subject, he 
gained in the first few months of his Presidency the approval 
of men of intelligence and independent thought, and, as 
success attended his different policies, he received the sup- 
port of the masses. The signal Republican triumph in 



262 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

the presidential election of 1880 was due to the improve- 
ment in business conditions and to the clean and efficient 
administration of Hayes. 

In recalling his predecessor in office, we think more gladly 
of the Grant of Donelson, Vicksburg, and Appomattox 
than of Grant the President, for during his two administra- 
tions corruption was rife and bad government to the fore. 
Financial scandals were so frequent that despairing patriots 
cried out, "Is there no longer honesty in public life?" Our 
country then reached the high-water mark of corruption in 
national affairs. A striking improvement began under 
Hayes, who infused into the public service his own high 
ideals of honesty and efficiency. Hayes was much assisted 
in his social duties by his wife, a woman of character and 
intelligence, who carried herself with grace and dignity. 
One sometimes heard the remark that as Hayes was ruled in 
political matters by John Sherman, so in social affairs he 
was ruled by his wife. The sole foundation for this lay in 
his deference to her total abstinence principles, which she 
held so strongly as to exclude wine from the White House 
table except, I believe, at one official dinner, that to the 
Russian Grand Dukes. 

Hayes's able Cabinet was likewise a harmonious one. 
Its members were accustomed to dine together at regular 
intervals (fortnightly, I think), when affairs of state and 
other subjects were discussed, and the geniality of these 
occasions was enhanced by a temperate circulation of the 
wine bottle. There must have been very good talk at these 
social meetings. Evarts and Schurz were citizens of the 
world. Evarts was a man of keen intelligence and wide 
information, and possessed a genial as well as a caustic 
wit. Schurz could discuss present politics and past history. 
He was well versed in European history of the eighteenth 



REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION 263 

century and the Napoleonic wars, and could talk about the 
power of Voltaire in literature and the influence of 
Lessing on Goethe. From appreciative discourse on the 
Wagner opera and the French drama, he could, if the con- 
versation turned to the Civil War, give a lively account of 
the battles of Chancellorsville or Gettysburg, in both of 
which he had borne an honorable part. Sherman was not 
a cosmopolitan like his two colleagues, but he loved dining 
out. His manners were those of the old-school gentleman ; 
he could listen with genial appreciation, and he could talk 
of events in American history of which he had been a con- 
temporaneous observer ; as, for example, of the impressive 
oratory of Daniel Webster at a dinner in Plymouth ; or the 
difference between the national conventions of his early 
political life and the huge ones of the present, illustrating 
his comparison with an account of the Whig convention of 
1852, to which he went as a delegate. 

Differing in many respects, Hayes and Grover Cleveland 
were alike in the possession of executive ability and the lack 
of oratorical. We all know that it is a purely academic 
question which is the better form of government, the Eng- 
lish or our own, as both have grown up to adapt themselves 
to peculiar conditions. But when I hear an enthusiast for 
Cabinet government and ministerial responsibility, I like to 
point out that men like Hayes and Cleveland, who made 
excellent Presidents, could never have been prime ministers. 
One cannot conceive of either in an office equivalent to that 
of First Lord of the Treasury, being heckled by members 
on the front opposition bench and holding his own or get- 
ting the better of his opponents. 

I have brought Hayes and Cleveland into juxtaposition, 
as each had a high personal regard for the other. Hayes 
died on January 17, 1893. Cleveland, the President-elect, 



264 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

was to be inaugurated on the following fourth of March. 
Despite remonstrance and criticism from bitter partisans 
of his own party, who deprecated any honor paid to one 
whom all good Democrats deemed a fraudulent President, 
Cleveland traveled from New York to Fremont, Ohio, to 
attend the funeral. He could only think of Hayes as an 
ex-President and a man whom he highly esteemed. 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 

Lecture read at Harvard University, April 13, 1908 ; printed in the 
Atlantic Monthly for September, 1908. 



V 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 

Our two great journalists of the nineteenth century were 
Greeley and Godkin. Though differing in very many 
respects, they were alike in possessing a definite moral pur- 
pose. The most glorious and influential portion of Greeley's 
career lay between the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act 
in 1854 and the election of Lincoln in 1860, when the press 
played an important part in the upbuilding of a political 
party which formulated in a practical manner the anti- 
slavery sentiment of the country. Foremost among news- 
papers was the New York Tribune; foremost among editors 
was Horace Greeley. Of Greeley in his best days Godkin 
wrote: ''He has an enthusiasm which never flags, and a 
faith in principles which nothing can shake, and an English 
style which, for vigor, terseness, clearness, and simplicity, 
has never been surpassed, except perhaps by Cobbett." ^ 

Greeley and Godkin were alike in furnishing their readers 
with telling arguments. In northern New York and the 
Western Reserve of Ohio the Weekly Tribune was a political 
Bible. ''Why do you look so gloomy?" said a traveler, 
riding along the highway in the Western Reserve during 
the old antislavery days, to a farmer who was sitting 
moodily on a fence. "Because," replied the farmer, "my 
Democratic friend next door got the best of me in an argu- 
ment last night. But when I get my Weekly Tribune to- 
morrow I'll knock the foundations all out from under him." ^ 

Premising that Godkin is as closely identified with The 

* R. Ogden's Life and Letters of E. L. Godkin, I, 255. 

* Rhodes's History of the United States, II, 72 (C. M. Depew). 

267 



268 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Nation and the Evening Post as Greeley with the Tribune, I 
shall refer to a personal experience. Passing a part of the 
winter of 1886 in a hotel at Thomasville, Georgia, it chanced 
that among the hundred or more guests there were eight 
or ten of us who regularly received The Nation by post. 
Ordinarily it arrived on the Friday noon train from Savan- 
nah, and when we came from our mid-day dinner into the 
hotel office, there, in our respective boxes, easily seen, and 
from their peculiar form recognized by every one, were our 
copies of The Nation. Occasionally the papers missed con- 
nection at Savannah, and our Nations did not arrive until 
after supper. It used to be said by certain scoffers that if a 
discussion of political questions came up in the afternoon of 
one of those days of disappointment, we readers were mum ; 
but in the late evening, after having digested our political 
pabulum, we were ready to join issue with any antagonist. 
Indeed, each of us might have used the words of James 
Russell Lowell, written while he was traveling on the Con- 
tinent and visiting many places where The Nation could not 
be bought: ''All the time I was without it, my mind was 
chaos and I didn't feel that I had a safe opinion to swear 
by." ' 

While the farmer of the Western Reserve and Lowell 
are extreme types of clientele, each represents fairly well 
the peculiar following of Greeley and of Godkin, which 
differed as much as did the personal traits of the two jour- 
nalists. Godkin speaks of Greeley's "odd attire, sham- 
bling gait, simple, good-natured and hopelessly peaceable 
face, and long yellow locks." ^ His "old white hat and 
white coat," which in New York were regarded as an affec- 
tation, counted with his following west of the Hudson River 
as a winning eccentricity. When he came out upon the 

» Ogden, II, 88. ^ /ft^^_^ j^ 257. 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 269 

lecture platform with crumpled shirt, cravat awry, and 
wrinkled coat looking as if he had traveled for a number of 
nights and days, such disorder appeared to many of his 
Western audiences as nothing worse than the mark of a very 
busy man, who had paid them the compliment of leaving 
his editorial rooms to speak to them in person, and who had 
their full sympathy as he thus opened his discourse, ''You 
mustn't, my friends, expect fine words from a rough busy 
man like me." ^ 

The people who read the Tribune did not expect fine 
words; they were used to the coarse, abusive language in 
which Greeley repelled attacks, and to his giving the lie 
with heartiness and vehemence. They enjoyed reading 
that ''another lie was nailed to the counter," and that an 
antagonist "was a liar, knowing himself to be a liar, and 
lying with naked intent to deceive." ^ 

On the contrary, the dress, the face, and the personal 
bearing of Godkin proclaimed at once the gentleman and 
cultivated man of the world. You felt that he was a man 
whom you would like to meet at dinner, accompany on a 
long walk, or cross the Atlantic with, were you an acquain- 
tance or friend. 

An incident related by Godkin himself shows that at 
least one distinguished gentleman did not enjoy sitting at 
meat with Greeley. During the spring of 1864 Godkin met 
Greeley at breakfast at the house of Mr. John A. C. Gray. 
William Cullen Bryant, at that time editor of the New York 
Evening Post, was one of the guests, and, when Greeley en- 
tered the room, was standing near the fireplace conversing 
with his host. On observing that Bryant did not speak to 
Greeley, Gray asked him in a whisper, "Don't you know 

' Parton's Greeley, 331, 576; my own recollections; Ogden, I, 255. 
" Godkin, Random Recollections, Evening Post, December 30, 1899. 



270 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Mr. Greeley?" In a loud whisper Bryant replied, ''No, I 
don't; he's a blackguard — he's a blackguard."^ 

In the numbers of people whom he influenced, Greeley 
had the advantage over Godkin. In February, 1855, the 
circulation of the Tribune was 172,000, and its own estimate 
of its readers half a million, which was certainly not exces- 
sive. It is not a consideration beyond bounds to infer that 
the readers of the Tribune in 1860 furnished a goodly part 
of the 1,886,000 votes which were received by Lincoln. 

At different times, while Godkin was editor. The Nation 
stated its exact circulation, which, as I remember it, was 
about 10,000, and it probably had 50,000 readers. As many 
of its readers were in the class of Lowell, its indirect influence 
was immense. Emerson said that The Nation had ''breadth, 
variety, self-sustainment, and an admirable style of thought 
and expression." — "I owe much to The Nation," wrote 
Francis Parkman. "I regard it as the most valuable of 
American journals, and feel that the best interests of the 
country are doubly involved in its success." — "What an 
influence you have !" said George William Curtis to Godkin. 
"What a sanitary element in our affairs The Nation is !" — 
"To my generation," wrote William James, "Godkin's was 
certainly the towering influence in all thought concerning 
public affairs, and indirectly his influence has certainly 
been more pervasive than that of any other writer of the 
generation, for he influenced other writers who never quoted 
him, and determined the whole current of discussion." — 
"When the work of this century is summed up," wrote 
Charles Eliot Norton to Godkin, "what you have done for 
the good old cause of civilization, the cause which is always 
defeated, but always after defeat taking more advanced posi- 
tion than before — what you have done for this cause will 

' Ogden, I, 168. 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 271 

count for much." — "I am conscious," wrote President 
Eliot to Godkin, ''that The Nation has had a decided effect 
on my opinions and my action for nearly forty years; and 
I believe it has had like effect on thousands of educated 
Americans." ^ 

A string of quotations, as is well known, becomes weari- 
some ; but the importance of the point that I am trying to 
make will probably justify one more. " I find myself so 
thoroughly agreeing with The Nation always," wrote Lowell, 
''that I am half persuaded that I edit it myself ! "^ Truly 
Lowell had a good company: Emerson, Parkman, Curtis, 
Norton, James, Eliot, — all teachers in various ways. 
Through their lectures, books, and speeches, they influenced 
college students at an impressible age; they appealed to 
young and to middle-aged men ; and they furnished comfort 
and entertainment for the old. It would have been diffi- 
cult to find anywhere in the country an educated man whose 
thought was not affected by some one of these seven ; and 
their influence on editorial writers for newspapers was re- 
markable. These seven were all taught by Godkin. 

"Every Friday morning when The Nation comes," wrote 
Lowell to Godkin, "I fill my pipe, and read it from beginning 
to end. Do you do it all yourself? Or are there really so 
many clever men in the country ? " ^ Lowell's experience, 
with or without tobacco, was undoubtedly that of hundreds, 
perhaps of thousands, of educated men, and the query he 
raised was not an uncommon one. At one time, Godkin, I 
believe, wrote most of " The Week," which was made up 
of brief and pungent comments on events, as well as the prin- 
cipal editorial articles. The power of iteration, which the 
journalist possesses, is great, and, when that power is wielded 

iQgden, I, 221, 249, 251, 252; II, 222, 231. 

2 Letters of J. R. Lowell, II, 76. ' Ibid., I, 368. 



272 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

by a man of keen intelligence and wide information, possess- 
ing a knowledge of the world, a sense of humor, and an effec- 
tive literary style, it becomes tremendous. The only escape 
from Godkin's iteration was one frequently tried, and that 
was, to stop The Nation. 

Although Godkin published three volumes of Essays, the 
honors he received during his lifetime were due to his work 
as editor of The Nation and the Evening Post; and this is 
his chief title of fame. The education, early experience, 
and aspiration of such a journalist are naturally matter of 
interest. Born in 1831, in the County of Wicklow in the 
southeastern part of Ireland, the son of a Presbyterian min- 
ister, he was able to say when referring to Goldwin Smith, 
'^I am an Irishman, but I am as English in blood as he is." ^ 
Receiving his higher education at Queen's College, Belfast, 
he took a lively interest in present politics, his college friends 
being Liberals. John Stuart Mill was their prophet, Grote 
and Bentham their daily companions, and America was their 
promised land. "To the scoffs of the Tories that our 
schemes were impracticable," he has written of these days, 
''our answer was that in America, barring slavery, they were 
actually at work. There, the chief of the state and the legis- 
lators were freely elected by the people. There, the offices 
were open to everybody who had the capacity to fill them. 
There was no army or navy, two great curses of humanity 
in all ages. There was to be no war except war in self- 
defense. ... In fact, we did not doubt that in America 
at last the triumph of humanity over its own weaknesses 
and superstitions was being achieved, and the dream of 
Christendom was at last being realized." ^ 

As a correspondent of the London Daily News he went to 
the Crimea. The scenes at Malakoff gave him a disgust for 

» Ogden, I, 1. 2 Evening Post, December 30, 1899; Odgen, I, 11. 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 273 

war which thenceforth he never failed to express upon every 
opportunity. When a man of sixty-eight, reckoning its 
cost in blood and treasure, he deemed the Crimean War 
entirely unnecessary and very deplorable.^ Godkin arrived 
in America in November, 1856, and soon afterwards, with 
Olmsted's "Journey in the Seaboard Slave States," the '^ Back 
Country," and " Texas," as guidebooks, took a horseback jour- 
ney through the South. Following closely Olmsted's trail, 
and speaking therefore with knowledge, he has paid him one 
of the highest compliments one traveler ever paid another. 
"Olmsted's work," he wrote, "in vividness of description 
and in photographic minuteness far surpasses Arthur 
Young's." ^ During this journey he wrote letters to the 
London Daily News, and these were continued after his 
return to New York City. For the last three years of our 
Civil War, he was its regular correspondent, and, as no one 
denies that he was a powerful advocate when his heart was 
enlisted, he rendered efficient service to the cause of the 
North. The News was strongly pro-Northern, and Godkin 
furnished the facts which rendered its leaders sound and 
instructive as well as sympathetic. All this while he was 
seeing socially the best people in New York City, and making 
useful and desirable acquaintances in Boston and Cam- 
bridge. 

The interesting story of the foundation of The Nation has 
been told a number of times, and it will suffice for our pur- 
pose to say that there were forty stockholders who contrib- 
uted a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, one half 
of which was raised in Boston, and one quarter each in 
Philadelphia and New York. Godkin was the editor, and 
next to him the chief promoters were James M. McKim of 
Philadelphia and Charles Eliot Norton. The first number 

» Evening Post, December 30, 1899. " Ibid.; Ogden, I, 113. 



274 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

of this ''weekly journal of politics, literature, science, and 
art" appeared on July 6, 1865. Financial embarrassment 
and disagreements among the stockholders marked the first 
year of its existence, at the end of which Godkin, McKim, 
and Frederick Law Olmsted took over the property, and 
continued the publication under the proprietorship of E. L. 
Godkin & Co. " The Nation owed its continued existence to 
Charles Eliot Norton," wrote Godkin in 1899. "It was his 
calm and confidence amid the shrieks of combatants . . . 
which enabled me to do my work even with decency." ^ 

Sixteen years after The Nation was started, in 1881, God- 
kin sold it out to the Evening Post, becoming associate editor 
of that journal, with Carl Schurz as his chief. The Nation 
was thereafter published as the weekly edition of the Even- 
ing Post. In 1883 Schurz retired and Godkin was made 
editor-in-chief, having the aid and support of one of the 
owners, Horace White. On January 1, 1900, on account of 
ill health, he withdrew from the editorship of the Evening 
Post,^ thus retiring from active journalism. 

For thirty-five years he had devoted himself to his 
work with extraordinary ability and singleness of purpose. 
Marked appreciation came to him : invitations to deliver 
courses of lectures from both Harvard and Yale, the degree 
of A.M. from Harvard, and the degree of D.C.L. from 
Oxford. What might have been a turning point in his 
career was the offer in 1870 of the professorship of history at 
Harvard. He was strongly tempted to accept it, but, be- 
fore coming to a decision, he took counsel of a number of 
friends; and few men, I think, have ever received such 
wise and disinterested advice as did Godkin when he was 
thus hesitating in what way he should apply his teaching. 

^Evening Post, December 30, 1899; Ogden, I, passim; The Nation, 
June 25, 1885, May 23, 1902. ^ Ogden, II, Chap. XVII. 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 275 

The burden of the advice was not to take the professorship, 
if he had to give up The Nation. 

Frederick Law Olmsted wrote to him: ^'If you can't 
write fully half of 'The Week' and half the leaders, and 
control the drift and tone of the whole while living at Cam- 
bridge, give up the professorship, for The Nation is worth 
many professorships. It is a question of loyalty over a 
question of comfort." Lowell wrote to him in the same 
strain: "Stay if the two things are incompatible. We 
may find another professor by and by . . . but we can't find 
another editor for The Nation.'' From Germany, John 
Bigelow sent a characteristic message: "Tell the University 
to require each student to take a copy of The Nation. Do 
not profess history for them in any other way. I dare say 
your lectures would be good, but why limit your pupils to 
hundreds which are now counted by thousands?" ^ 

As is well known, Godkin relinquished the idea of the 
college connection and stuck to his job, although the quiet 
and serenity of a professor's life in Cambridge contrasted 
with his own turbulent days appealed to him powerfully. 
''Ten years hence," he wrote to Norton, "if things go on as 
they are now I shall be the most odious man in America. 
Not that I shall not have plenty of friends, but my enemies 
will be far more numerous and active." Six years after he 
had founded The Nation, and one year after he had declined 
the Harvard professorship, when he was yet but forty years 
old, he gave this humorously exaggerated account of his 
physical failings due to his nervous strain: ''I began The 
Nation young, handsome, and fascinating, and am now 
withered and somewhat broken, rheumatism gaining on me 
rapidly, my complexion ruined, as also my figure, for I 
am growing stout." ^ 

» Ogden, II, Chap. XI. ^ Ibid., II, 51. 



276 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

But his choice between the Harvard professorship and 
The Nation was a wise one. He was a born writer of para- 
graphs and editorials. The files of The Nation are his monu- 
ment. A crown of his laborious days is the tribute of James 
Bryce : " The Nation was the best weekly not only in Amer- 
ica but in the world." ^ 

Thirty-five years of journalism, in which Godkin was ac- 
customed to give hard blows, did not, as he himself fore- 
shadowed, call forth a unanimous chorus of praise ; and the 
objections of intelligent and high-minded men are well 
worth taking into account. The most common one is that 
his criticism was always destructive; that he had an eye 
for the weak side of causes and men that he did not favor, 
and these he set forth with unremitting vigor without re- 
gard for palliating circumstances ; that he erected a high 
and impossible ideal and judged all men by it; hence, if a 
public man was right eight times out of ten, he would seize 
upon the two failures and so parade them with his withering 
sarcasm that the reader could get no other idea than that 
the man was either weak or wicked. An editor of very 
positive opinions, he was apt to convey the idea that if any 
one differed from him on a vital question, like the tariff or 
finance or civil service reform, he was necessarily a bad man. 
He made no allowances for the weaknesses of human nature, 
and had no idea that he himself ever could be mistaken. 
Though a powerful critic, he did not realize the highest 
criticism, which discerns and brings out the good as well as 
the evil. He won his reputation by dealing out censure, 
which has a rare attraction for a certain class of minds, 
as Tacitus observed in his "History." "People," he wrote, 
"lend a ready ear to detraction and spite," for "malignity 
wears the imposing appearance of independence." ^ 

^ Studies in Contemporary Biography, 372. ^ Tacitus, History, I, 1. 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 277 

The influence of The Nation, therefore, — so these ob- 
jectors to Godkin aver, — was especially unfortunate on 
the intelligent youth of the country. It was in 1870 that 
John Bigelow, whom I have just quoted, advised Harvard 
University to include The Nation among its requirements ; 
and it is true that at that time, and for a good while after- 
wards. The Nation was favorite reading for serious Harvard 
students. The same practice undoubtedly prevailed at 
most other colleges. Now I have been told that the effect 
of reading The Nation was to prevent these young men from 
understanding their own country; that, as Godkin himself 
did not comprehend America, he was an unsound teacher 
and made his youthful readers see her through a false me- 
dium. And I am further informed that in mature life it cost 
an effort, a mental wrench, so to speak, to get rid of this in- 
fluence and see things as they really were, which was neces- 
sary for usefulness in lives cast in America. The United 
States was our country; she was entitled to our love and 
service; and yet such a frame of mind was impossible, so 
this objection runs, if we read and believed the writing of 
The Nation. A man of character and ability, who had filled 
a number of public offices with credit, told me that the in- 
fluence of The Nation had been potent in keeping college 
graduates out of public life ; that things in the United States 
were painted so black both relatively and absolutely that 
the young men naturally reasoned, ^'Why shall we concern 
ourselves about a country which is surely going to destruc- 
tion?" Far better, they may have said, to pattern after 
Plato's philosopher who kept out of politics, being 'Uike 
one who retires under the shelter of a wall in the storm of 
dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along." ^ 

Such considerations undoubtedly lost The Nation valuable 

^ Republic. 



278 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

subscribers. I have been struck with three circumstances 
in juxtaposition. At the time of Judge Hoar's forced resig- 
nation from Grant's Cabinet in 1870, The Nation said, '^In 
peace as in war ' that is best blood which hath most iron in't ; ' 
and much is to be excused to the man [that is, Judge Hoar] 
who has for the first time in many years of Washington 
history given a back-handed blow to many an impudent 
and arrogant dispenser of patronage. He may well be 
proud of most of the enmity that he won while in office, 
and may go back contented to Massachusetts to be her most 
honored citizen." ^ Two months later Lowell wrote to 
Godkin, ''The bound volumes of The Nation standing on 
Judge Hoar's library table, as I saw them the other day, 
were a sign of the estimation in which it is held by solid peo- 
ple and it is they who in the long run decide the fortunes of 
such a journal." ^ But The Nation lost Judge Hoar's sup- 
port. When I called upon him in 1893 he was no longer 
taking or reading it. 

It is the sum of individual experiences that makes up 
the influence of a journal like The Nation, and one may there- 
fore be pardoned the egotism necessarily arising from a re- 
lation of one's own contact with it. In 1866, while a student 
at the University of Chicago, I remember well that, in a 
desultory talk in the English Literature class. Professor 
William Matthews spoke of The Nation and advised the 
students to read it each week as a political education of 
high value. This was the first knowledge I had of it, but 
I was at that time, along with many other young men, de- 
voted to the Round Table, an ''Independent weekly review 
of Politics, Finance, Literature, Society, and Art," which 
flourished between the years 1864 and 1868. We asked the 
professor, "Do you consider The Nation superior to the 
» June 23, Rhodes, VI, 382. ^ Ogden, II, 66. 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 279 

Round Tabled' — '' Decidedly," was his reply. ''The edi- 
tors of the Round Table seem to write for the sake of writ- 
ing, while the men who are expressing themselves in The 
Nation do so because their hearts and minds are full of their 
matter." This was a just estimate of the difference between 
the two journals. The Round Table, modeled after the 
Saturday Review, was a feeble imitation of the London 
weekly, then in its palmy days, while The Nation, which was 
patterned after the Spectator, did not suffer by the side of its 
model. On this hint from Professor Matthews, I began 
taking and reading The Nation, and with the exception of 
one year in Europe during my student days, I have read it 
ever since. 

Before I touch on certain specifications I must premise 
that the influence of this journal on a Westerner, who read 
it in a receptive spirit, was probably more potent than on 
one living in the East. The arrogance of a higher civiliza- 
tion in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia than elsewhere 
in the United States, the term ''wild and woolly West," 
applied to the region west of the Alleghany Mountains, is 
somewhat irritating to a Westerner. Yet it remains none 
the less true that, other things being equal, a man living in 
the environment of Boston or New York would have arrived 
more easily and more quickly at certain sound political 
views I shall proceed to specify than he would while living 
in Cleveland or Chicago. The gospel which Godkin preached 
was needed much more in the West than in the East ; and 
his disciples in the western country had for him a high de- 
gree of reverence. In the biography of Godkin, allusion is 
made to the small pecuniary return for his work, but in 
thinking of him we never considered the money question. 
We supposed that he made a living ; we knew from his ar- 
ticles that he was a gentleman, and saw much of good society, 



280 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

and there was not one of us who would not rather have been 
in his shoes than in those of the richest man in New York. 
We placed such trust in him — which his life shows to have 
been abundantly justified — that we should have lost all 
confidence in human nature had he ever been tempted by 
place or profit. And his influence was abiding. Presidents, 
statesmen, senators, congressmen rose and fell; political 
administrations changed ; good, bad, and weak pubhc men 
passed away ; but Godkin preached to us every week a timely 
and cogent sermon. 

To return now to my personal experience. I owe wholly 
to The Nation my conviction in favor of civil service reform ; 
in fact, it was from these columns that I first came to under- 
stand the question. The arguments advanced were sane 
and strong, and especially intelligible to men in business, 
who, in the main, chose their employees on the ground of 
fitness, and who made it a rule to retain and advance com- 
petent and honest men in their employ. I think that on 
this subject the indirect influence of The Nation was very 
great, in furnishing arguments to men like myself, who never 
lost an opportunity to restate them, and to editorial writers 
for the Western newspapers, who generally read The Nation 
and who were apt to reproduce its line of reasoning. When 
I look back to 1869, the year in which I became a voter, and 
recall the strenuous opposition to civil service reform on the 
part of the politicians of both parties, and the indifference 
of the public, I confess that I am amazed at the progress 
which has been made. Such a reform is of course effected 
only by a number of contributing causes and some favoring 
circumstances, but I feel certain that it was accelerated by 
the constant and vigorous support of The Nation. 

I owe to The Nation more than to any other agency my 
correct ideas on finance in two crises. The first was the 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 281 

"greenback craze" from 1869 to 1875. It was easy to be 
a hard-money man in Boston or New York, where one might 
imbibe the correct doctrine as one everywhere takes in the 
fundamental principles of civilization and morality. But it 
was not so in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, where the severe 
money stringency before and during the panic of 1873, and 
the depression after it, caused many good and representative 
men to join in the cry for a larger issue of greenbacks by 
the government. It required no moral courage for the aver- 
age citizen to resist what in 1875 seemed to be the popular 
move, but it did require the correct knowledge and the for- 
cible arguments put forward weekly by The Nation. I do 
not forget my indebtedness to John Sherman, Carl Schurz, 
and Senator Thurman, but Sherman and Thurman were 
not always consistent on this question, and Schurz's voice 
was only occasionally heard ; but every seven days came 
The Nation with its unremitting iteration, and it was an 
iteration varied enough to be always interesting and worthy 
of study. As one looks back over nearly forty years of poli- 
tics one likes to recall the occasions when one has done the 
thing one's mature judgment fully approves; and I like to 
think that in 1875 I refused to vote for my party's candi- 
date for governor, the Democratic William Allen, whose 
platform was "that the volume of currency be made and 
kept equal to the wants of trade." 

A severer ordeal was the silver question of 1878, because 
the argument for silver was more weighty than that for 
irredeemable paper, and was believed to be sound by busi- 
ness men of both parties. I remember that many represent- 
ative business men of Cleveland used to assemble around 
the large luncheon table of the Union Club and discuss the 
pending silver-coinage bill, which received the votes of both 
of the senators from Ohio and of all her representatives 



282 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

except Garfield. The gold men were in a minority also at the 
luncheon table, but, fortified by The Nation, we thought 
that we held our own in this daily discussion. 

In my conversion from a belief in a protective tariff to 
the advocacy of one for revenue only, I recognize an obli- 
gation to Godkin, but his was only one of many influences. 
I owe The Nation much for its accurate knowledge of foreign 
affairs, especially of English politics, in which its readers 
were enlightened by one of the most capable of living men, 
Albert V. Dicey. I am indebted to it for sound ideas on 
municipal government, and for its advocacy of many minor 
measures, such for instance as the International Copy- 
right Bill. I owe it something for its later attitude on Re- 
construction, and its condemnation of the negro carpet-bag 
governments in the South. In a word. The Nation was on 
the side of civilization and good political morals. 

Confessing thus my great political indebtedness to Godkin, 
it is with some reluctance that I present a certain phase of 
his thought which was regretted by many of his best friends, 
and which undoubtedly limited his influence in the later 
years of his life. A knowledge of this shortcoming is, how- 
ever, essential to a thorough comprehension of the man. 
It is frequently said that Godkin rarely, if ever, made a re- 
traction or a rectification of personal charges shown to be 
incorrect. A thorough search of The Nation's columns 
would be necessary fully to substantiate this statement, but 
my own impression, covering as it does thirty-three years' 
reading of the paper under Godkin's control, inclines me 
to believe in its truth, as I do not remember an instance of 
the kind. 

A grave fault of omission occurs to me as showing a re- 
grettable bias in a leader of intelHgent opinion. On January 5, 
1897, General Francis A. Walker died. He had served with 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 283 

credit as an officer during our Civil War, and in two thought- 
ful books had made a valuable contribution to its military 
history. He was superintendent of the United States Cen- 
sus of 1870, and did work that statisticians and historians 
refer to with gratitude and praise. For sixteen years he 
served with honor the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- 
ogy as its president. He was a celebrated political econo- 
mist, his books being (I think) as well known in England 
as in this country. Yale, Amherst, Harvard, Columbia, 
St. Andrews, and Dublin conferred upon him the degree 
of LL.D. Withal he served his city with public spirit. 
Trinity Church, ''crowded and silent" in celebrating its 
last service over the dead body of Walker, witnessed one of 
the three most impressive funerals which Boston has seen 
for at least sixteen years — a funeral conspicuous for the 
attendance of a large number of delegates from colleges and 
learned societies. 

Walker was distinctly of the intellectual 61ite of the coun- 
try. But The Nation made not the slightest reference to his 
death. In the issue of January 7, appearing two days later, 
I looked for an allusion in ''The Week," and subsequently 
for one of those remarkable and discriminating eulogies, 
which in smaller type follow the editorials, and for which The 
Nation is justly celebrated; but there was not one word. 
You might search the 1897 volume of The Nation and, but 
for a brief reference in the April "Notes" to Walker's an- 
nual report posthumously published, you would not learn 
that a great intellectual leader had passed away. I wrote 
to a valued contributor of The Nation, a friend of Walker, of 
Godkin, and of Wendell P. Garrison (the literary editor), 
inquiring if he knew the reason for the omission, and in 
answer he could only tell me that his amazement had been 
as great as mine. He at first looked eagerly, and, when 



284 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

the last number came in which a eulogy could possibly 
appear, he turned over the pages of The Nation with sorrow- 
ful regret, hardly believing his eyes that the article he sought 
was not there. 

Now I suspect that the reason of this extraordinary omis- 
sion was due to the irreconcilable opinions of Walker and 
Godkin on a question of finance. It was a period when the 
contest between the advocates of a single gold standard and 
the bimetallists raged fiercely, and the contest had not been 
fully settled by the election of McKinley in 1896. Godkin 
was emphatically for gold, Walker equally emphatic for a 
double standard. And they clashed. It is a notable ex- 
ample of the peculiarity of Godkin, to allow at the portal of 
death the one point of political policy on which he and 
Walker disagreed to overweigh the nine points in which 
they were at one. 

Most readers of The Nation noticed distinctly that, from 
1895 on, its tone became more pessimistic and its criticism 
was marked by greater acerbity. Mr. Rollo Ogden in his 
biography shows that Godkin's feeling of disappointment 
over the progress of the democratic experiment in America, 
and his hopelessness of our future, began at an earlier 
date. 

During his first years in the United States, he had no 
desire to return to his mother country. When the financial 
fortune of The Nation was doubtful, he wrote to Norton that 
he should not go back to England except as a "last ex- 
tremity. It would be going back into an atmosphere that 
I detest, and a social system that I have hated since I was 
fourteen years old." ^ In 1889, after an absence of twenty- 
seven years, he went to England. The best intellectual 
society of London and Oxford opened its doors to him and 

» Ogden, II, 140. 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 285 

he fell under its charm as would any American who was the 
recipient of marked attentions from people of such distinc- 
tion. He began to draw contrasts which were not favorable 
to his adopted country. '^I took a walk along the wonder- 
ful Thames embankment/' he wrote, "a, splendid work, 
and I sighed to think how impossible it would be to get such 
a thing done in New York. The differences in government 
and political manners are in fact awful, and for me very 
depressing. Henry James [with whom he stopped in Lon- 
don] and I talk over them sometimes 'des larmes dans la 
voix.' " In 1894, however, Godkin wrote in the Forum: 
''There is probably no government in the world to-day as 
stable as that of the United States. The chief advantage 
of democratic government is, in a country like this, the 
enormous force it can command in an emergency." ^ But 
next year his pessimism is clearly apparent. On January 
12, 1895, he wrote to Norton: ''You see I am not sanguine 
about the future of democracy. I think we shall have a 
long period of decline like that which followed (?) the fall 
of the Roman Empire, and then a recrudescence under 
some other form of society." ^ 

A number of things had combined to affect him pro- 
foundly. An admirer of Grover Cleveland and three times 
a warm supporter of his candidacy for the Presidency, he 
saw with regret the loss of his hold on his party, which was 
drifting into the hands of the advocates of free silver. Then 
in December, 1895, Godkin lost faith in his idol. "I was 
thunderstruck by Cleveland's message" on the Venezuela 
question, he wrote to Norton. His submission to the Jin- 
goes "is a terrible shock." ^ Later, in a calm review of pass- 
ing events, he called the message a "sudden declaration of 

' Problems of Modern Democracy, 209. 
2 Ogden, II, 199. ' Ibid., II, 202. 




286 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

war without notice against Great Britain." * The danger 
of such a proceeding he had pointed out to Norton: Our 
'^ immense democracy, mostly ignorant ... is constantly 
on the brink of some frightful catastrophe like that which 
overtook France in 1870." ^ In 1896 he was deeply dis- 
tressed at the country having to choose for President be- 
tween the arch-protectionist McKinley and the free-silver 
advocate Bryan, for he had spent a good part of his life 
combating a protective tariff and advocating sound money. 
Though the Evening Post contributed powerfully to the elec- 
tion of McKinley, from the fact that its catechism, teaching 
financial truths in a popular form, was distributed through- 
out the West in immense quantities by the chairman of the 
Republican National Committee, Godkin himself refused to 
vote for McKinley and put in his ballot for Palmer, the gold 
Democrat.^ 

The Spanish-American war seems to have destroyed any 
lingering hope that he had left for the future of American 
democracy. He spoke of it as ''a perfectly avoidable war 
forced on by a band of unscrupulous politicians" who had 
behind them ''a roaring mob." * The taking of the Phihp- 
pines and the subsequent war in these islands confirmed 
him in his despair. In a private letter written from Paris, 
he said, '^American ideals were the intellectual food of my 
youth, and to see America converted into a senseless, Old- 
World conqueror, embitters my age." ^ To another he 
wrote that his former ''high and fond ideals about America 
were now all shattered." ^ ''Sometimes he seemed to feel," 
said his intimate friend, James Bryce, "as though he had 
labored in vain for forty years." ' 

' Random Recollections, Evening Post, December 30, 1899. 
' Ogden, II, 202. » Ibid., II, 214. ■• Ibid., II, 238. 

Ibid., II, 219. » Ibid., II, 237. ' Biographical Studies, 378. 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 287 

Such regrets expressed by an honest and sincere man 
with a high ideal must command pur respectful attention. 
Though due in part to old age and enfeebled health, they are 
still more attributable to his disappointment that the coun- 
try had not developed in the way that he had marked out 
for her. For with men of Godkin's positive convictions, 
there is only one way to salvation. Sometimes such men 
are true prophets ; at other times, while they see clearly 
certain aspects of a case, their narrowness of vision prevents 
them from taking in the whole range of possibilities, es- 
pecially when the enthusiasm of manhood is gone. 

Godkin took a broader view in 1868, which he forcibly 
expressed in a letter to the London Daily News. ''There is 
no careful and intelligent observer," he wrote, "whether he 
be a friend to democracy or not, who can help admiring the 
unbroken power with which the popular common sense — that 
shrewdness, or intelligence, or instinct of self-preservation, I 
care not what you call it, which so often makes the American 
farmer a far better politician than nine tenths of the best 
read European political philosophers — works under all 
this tumult and confusion of tongues. The newspapers 
and politicians fret and fume and shout and denounce ; but 
the great mass, the nineteen or twenty millions, work away 
in the fields and workshops, saying little, thinking much, 
hardy, earnest, self-reliant, very tolerant, very indulgent, 
very shrewd, but ready whenever the government needs it, 
with musket, or purse, or vote, as the case may be, laughing 
and cheering occasionally at public meetings, but when you 
meet them individually on the highroad or in their own 
houses, very cool, then, sensible men, filled with no delusions, 
carried away by no frenzies, believing firmly in the future 
greatness and glory of the republic, but holding to no other 
article of faith as essential to political salvation." 



288 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Before continuing the quotation I wish to call attention 
to the fact that Godkin's illustration was more effective in 
1868 than now : then there was a solemn and vital meaning 
to the prayers offered up for persons going to sea that they 
might be preserved from the dangers of the deep. '^ Every 
now and then," he went on to say, ''as one watches the 
poUtical storms in the United States, one is reminded of 
one's feelings as one lies in bed on a stormy night in an ocean 
steamer in a head wind. Each blow of the sea shakes the 
ship from stem to stern, and every now and then a tremen- 
dous one seems to paralyze her. The machinery seems to 
stop work ; there is a dead pause, and you think for a mo- 
ment the end has come; but the throbbing begins once 
more, and if you go up on deck and look down in the 
hold, you see the firemen and engineers at their posts, 
apparently unconscious of anything but their work, and 
as sure of getting into port as if there was not a ripple on 
the water." 

This letter of Godkin's was written on January 8, 1868, 
when Congress was engaged in the reconstruction of the South 
on the basis of negro suffrage, when the quarrel between Con- 
gress and President Johnson was acute and his impeachment 
not two months off. At about this time Godkin set down 
Evarts's opinion that'' we are witnessing the decline of public 
morality which usually presages revolution," and reported 
that Howells was talking "despondently hke everybody 
else about the condition of morals and manners." ^ Of like 
tenor was the opinion of an arch-conservative, George Tick- 
nor, written in 1869, which bears a resemblance to the lam- 
entation of Godkin's later years. "The civil war of '61," 
wrote Ticknor, "has made a great gulf between what hap- 
pened before it in our century and what has happened 
»Ogden, I, 301, 307. 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 289 

since, or what is likely to happen hereafter. It does not 
seem to me as if I were living in the country in which I was 
born, or in which I received whatever I ever got of political 
education or principles. Webster seems to have been the 
last of the Romans." ^ 

In 1868 Godkin was an optimist, having a cogent answer 
to all gloomy predictions ; from 1895 to 1902 he was a pessi- 
mist; yet reasons just as strong may be adduced for con- 
sidering the future of the country secure in the later as were 
urged in the earlier period. But as Godkin grew older, he 
became a moral censor, and it is characteristic of censors to 
exaggerate both the evil of the present and the good of the 
past. Thus in 1899 he wrote of the years 1857-1860: 
''The air was full of the real Americanism. The American 
gospel was on people's lips and was growing with fervor. 
Force was worshiped, but it was moral force : it was the force 
of reason, of humanity, of human equality, of a good ex- 
ample. The abolitionist gospel seemed to be permeating 
the views of the American people, and overturning and 
destroying the last remaining traditions of the old-world 
public morality. It was really what might be called the 
golden age of America." ^ These were the days of slavery. 
James Buchanan was President. The internal policy of 
the party in power was expressed in the Dred Scott decision 
and the attempt to force slavery on Kansas; the foreign 
policy, in the Ostend Manifesto, which declared that if Spain 
would not sell Cuba, the United States would take it by force. 
The rule in the civil service was, ''to the victors belong the 
spoils." And New York City, where Godkin resided, had 
for its mayor Fernando Wood. 

In this somewhat rambling paper I have subjected Godkin 

*Life and Letters, II, 485. 

^ Random Recollections, Evening Post, December 30, 1899. 



290 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

to a severe test by a contrast of his public and private utter- 
ances covering many years, not however with the intention 
of accusing him of inconsistency. Ferrero writes that his- 
torians of our day find it easy to expose the contradictions 
of Cicero, but they forget that probably as much could 
be said of his contemporaries, if we possessed also their 
private correspondence. Similarly, it is a pertinent 
question how many journalists and how many public 
men would stand as well as Godkin in this matter of 
consistency if we possessed the same abundant records of 
their activity? 

The more careful the study of Godkin's utterances, the 
less will be the irritation felt by men who love and believe 
in their country. It is evident that he was a born critic, 
and his private correspondence is full of expressions showing 
that if he had been conducting a journal in England, his 
criticism of certain phases of English policy would have 
been as severe as those which he indulged in weekly at the 
expense of this country. ''How Ireland sits heavy on your 
soul!" he wrote to James Bryce. ''Salisbury was an ut- 
terly discredited Foreign Secretary when you brought up 
Home Rule. Now he is one of the wisest of men. Balfour 
and Chamberlain have all been lifted into eminence by 
opposition to Home Rule simply." To Professor Norton : 
"Chamberlain is a capital specimen of the rise of an un- 
scrupulous politician." Again: "The fall of England into 
the hands of a creature like Chamberlain recalls the capture 
of Rome by Alaric." To another friend : "I do not Hke 
to talk about the Boer War, it is too painful. . . . When 
I do speak of the war my language becomes unfit for publi- 
cation." On seeing the Queen and the Prince of Wales 
driving through the gardens at Windsor, his comment was 
"Fat, useless royalty;" and in 1897 he wrote from England 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 291 

to Arthur Sedgwick, '^ There are many things here which 
reconcile me to America." ^ 

In truth, much of his criticism of America is only an elab- 
oration of his criticism of democracy. In common with 
many Europeans born at about the same time, who began 
their political life as radicals, he shows his keen disap- 
pointment that democracy has not regenerated mankind. 
''There is not a country in the world, living under parlia- 
mentary government," he wrote, ''which has not begun to 
complain of the decline in the quality of its legislators. 
More and more, it is said, the work of government is falling 
into the hands of men to whom even small pay is important, 
and who are suspected of adding to their income by corrup- 
tion. The withdrawal of the more intelligent class from 
legislative duties is more and more lamented, and the com- 
plaint is somewhat justified by the mass of crude, hasty, 
incoherent, and unnecessary laws which are poured on the 
world at every session." ^ 

I have thus far spoken only of the political influence of 
The Nation, but its literary department was equally impor- 
tant. Associated with Godkin from the beginning was 
Wendell P. Garrison, who became literary editor of the 
journal, and, who, Godkin wrote in 1871, "has really toiled 
for six years with the fidelity of a Christian martyr and 
upon the pay of an oysterman." ^ I have often heard the 
literary criticism of The Nation called destructive like the 
political, but, it appears to me, with less reason. Books 
for review were sent to experts in different parts of the 
country, and the list of contributors included many profes- 
sors from various colleges. While the editor, I believe, 

» Ogden, II, 30, 136, 213, 214, 247, 253. 
^Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy, 117. 
3 0gden, II, 51. 



292 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

retained, and sometimes exercised, the right to omit parts 
of the review and make some additions, yet writers drawn 
from so many sources must have preserved their own in- 
dividuaUty. I have heard it said that The Nation gave you 
the impression of having been entirely written by one man ; 
but whatever there is more than fanciful in that impression 
must have arisen from the general agreement between the 
editor and the contributors. Paul Leicester Ford once told 
me that, when he wrote a criticism for The Nation, he un- 
consciously took on The Nation^ s style, but he could write in 
that way for no other journal, nor did he ever fall into it in 
his books. Garrison was much more tolerant than is some- 
times supposed. I know of his sending many books to two 
men, one of whom differed from him radically on the 
negro question and the other on socialism. 

It is only after hearing much detraction of the literary de- 
partment of The Nation, and after considerable reflection, 
that I have arrived at the conviction that it came somewhat 
near to realizing criticism as defined by Matthew Arnold, 
thus: ''A disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate 
the best that is known and thought in the world." ^ I am 
well aware that it was not always equal, and I remember 
two harsh reviews which ought not to have been printed; 
but this simply proves that the editor was human and The 
Nation was not perfect. I feel safe, however, in saying that 
if the best critical reviews of The Nation were collected and 
printed in book form, they would show an aspiration after 
the standard erected by Sainte-Beuve and Matthew Arnold. 

Again I must appeal to my individual experience. The 
man who lived in the middle West for the twenty-five years 
between 1865 and 1890 needed the literary department of 
The Nation more than one who lived in Boston or New York. 

' Essays, 38. 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 293 

Most of the books written in America were by New England, 
New York, and Philadelphia authors, and in those com- 
munities literary criticism was evolved by social contact in 
clubs and other gatherings. We had nothing of the sort in 
Cleveland, where a writer of books walking down Euclid 
Avenue would have been stared at as a somewhat remark- 
able personage. The literary columns of The Nation were 
therefore our most important link between our practical 
life and the literary world. I used to copy into my Index 
Rerum long extracts from important reviews, in which the 
writers appeared to have a thorough grasp of their subjects; 
and these I read and re-read as I would a significant passage 
in a favorite book. In the days when many of us were pro- 
foundly influenced by Herbert Spencer's ^' Sociology," I was 
somewhat astonished to read one week in The Nation, in a 
review of Pollock's " Introduction to the Science of Politics," 
these words: "Herbert Spencer's contributions to political 
and historical science seem to us mere commonplaces, some- 
times false, sometimes true, but in both cases trying to dis- 
guise their essential flatness and commonness in a garb of 
dogmatic formalism." ^ Such an opinion, evidencing a con- 
flict between two intellectual guides, staggered me, and it 
was with some curiosity that I looked subsequently, when 
the Index to Periodicals came out, to see who had the temer- 
ity thus to belittle Spencer — the greatest political philoso- 
pher, so some of his disciples thought, since Aristotle. 
I ascertained that the writer of the review was James Bryce, 
and whatever else might be thought, it could not be denied 
that the controversy was one between giants. I can, I 
think, date the beginning of my emancipation from Spencer 
from that review in 1891. 

In the same year I read a discriminating eulogy of George 

> Vol. 52, p. 267. 



294 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Bancroft, ending with an intelligent criticism of his history, 
which produced on nie a marked impression. The reviewer 
wrote: Bancroft falls into "that error so common with the 
graphic school of historians — the exaggerated estimate of 
manuscripts or fragmentary material at the expense of what 
is printed and permanent. . . . But a fault far more seri- 
ous than this is one which Mr. Bancroft shared with his 
historical contemporaries, but in which he far exceeded any 
of them — an utter ignoring of the very meaning and 
significance of a quotation mark." ^ Sound and scientific 
doctrine is this ; and the whole article exhibited a thorough 
knowledge of our colonial and revolutionary history which 
inspired confidence in the conclusions of the writer, who, I 
later ascertained, was Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 

These two examples could be multiplied at length. There 
were many reviewers from Harvard and Yale ; and undoubt- 
edly other Eastern colleges were well represented. The 
University of Wisconsin furnished at least one contributor, 
as probably did the University of Michigan and other Western 
colleges. Men in Washington, New York, and Boston, not 
in academic life, were drawn upon ; a soldier of the Civil War, 
living in Cincinnati, a man of affairs, sent many reviews. 
James Bryce was an occasional contributor, and at least 
three notable reviews came from the pen of Albert V. Dicey. 
In 1885, Godkin, in speaking of The Nation's department of 
Literature and Art, wrote that "the list of those who have 
contributed to the columns of the paper from the first issue 
to the present day contains a large number of the most 
eminent names in American literature, science, art, phi- 
losophy, and law." ^ With men so gifted, and chosen from 
all parts of the country, uniformly destructive criticism 
could not have prevailed. Among them were optimists as 

» Vol. 52, p. 66. 2 June 25, 1SS5. 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 295 

well as pessimists, and men as independent in thought as 
was Godkin himself. 

Believing that Godkin's thirty-five years of critical work 
was of great benefit to this country, I have sometimes asked 
myself whether the fact of his being a foreigner has made 
it more irritating to many good people, who term his criti- 
cism '' fault-finding" or ^'scolding." Although he married 
in America and his home hfe was centered here, he confessed 
that in many essential things it was a foreign country/ 
Some readers who admired The Nation told Mr. Bryce that 
they did not want 'Ho be taught by a European how to run 
this republic." But Bryce, who in this matter is the most 
competent of judges, intimates that Godkin's foreign educa- 
tion, giving him detachment and perspective, was a distinct 
advantage. If it will help any one to a better appreciation 
of the man, let Godkin be regarded as "a chiel amang 
us takin' notes"; as an observer not so philosophic as 
Tocqueville, not so genial and sympathetic as Bryce. Yet, 
whether we look upon him as an Irishman, an Englishman, 
or an American, let us rejoice that he cast his lot with us, 
and that we have had the benefit of his illuminating pen. 
He was not always right ; he was sometimes unjust ; he often 
told the truth with ''needless asperity," ^ as Parkman put 
it; but his merits so outweighed his defects that he had a 
marked influence on opinion, and probably on history, 
during his thirty-five years of journalistic work, when, ac- 
cording to James Bryce, he showed a courage such as is 
rare everywhere.^ General J. D. Cox, who had not missed 
a number of The Nation from 1865 to 1899, wrote to Godkin, 
on hearing of his prospective retirement from the Evening 
Post, "I really believe that earnest men, all over the land, 
whether they agree with you or differ, will unite in the 

' Ogden, II, 116. ^ Ibid., I, 252. ^ Biographical Studies, 370. 



296 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

exclamation which Lincoln made as to Grant, 'We can't 
spare this man — he fights.' " ^ 

Our country, wrapped up in no smug complacency, lis- 
tened to this man, respected him and supported him, and 
on his death a number of people were glad to unite to endow 
a lectureship in his honor in Harvard University. 

In closing, I cannot do better than quote what may be 
called Godkin's farewell words, printed forty days before 
the attack of cerebral hemorrhage which ended his active 
career. ''The election of the chief officer of the state by 
universal suffrage," he wrote, "by a nation approaching one 
hundred millions, is not simply a novelty in the history of 
man's efforts to govern himself, but an experiment of which 
no one can foresee the result. The mass is yearly becoming 
more and more difficult to move. The old arts of persua- 
sion are already ceasing to be employed on it. Presidential 
elections are less and less carried by speeches and articles. 
The American people is a less instructed people than it 
used to be. The necessity for drilling, organizing, and guid- 
ing it, in order to extract the vote from it is becoming plain ; 
and out of this necessity has arisen the boss system, which 
is now found in existence everywhere, is growing more 
powerful, and has thus far resisted all attempts to over- 
throw it." 

I shall not stop to urge a qualification of some of these 
statements, but will proceed to the brighter side of our case, 
which Godkin, even in his pessimistic mood, could not fail 
to see distinctly. "On the other hand," he continued, "I 
think the progress made by the colleges throughout the 
country, big and little, both in the quality of the in- 
struction and in the amount of money devoted to books, 
laboratories, and educational facilities of all kinds, is some- 

' Ogden, II, 229. 



EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN 297 

thing unparalleled in the history of the civilized world. 
And the progress of the nation in all the arts, except that of 
government, in science, in literature, in commerce, in inven- 
tion, is something unprecedented and becomes daily more 
astonishing. How it is that this splendid progress does not 
drag on politics with it I do not profess to know." ^ 

Let us be as hopeful as was Godkin in his earlier days, and 
rest assured that intellectual training will eventually exert 
its power in politics, as it has done in business and in other 
domains of active life. 

* Evening Post, December 30, 1899. 



WHO BURNED COLUMBIA? 

paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the 
Kovember meeting of 1901, and printed in the American His- 
torical Review of Aprils 1902. 



WHO BURNED COLUMBIA? 

The story goes that when General Sherman lived in New 
York City, which was during the last five years of his life, 
he attended one night a dinner party at which he and an 
ex-Confederate general who had fought against him in the 
southwest were the chief guests; and that an Englishman 
present asked in perfect innocence the question, Who 
burned Columbia? Had bombshells struck the tents of 
these generals during the war, they would not have caused 
half the commotion in their breasts that did this question 
put solely with the desire of information. The emphatic 
language of Sherman interlarded with the oaths he uttered 
spontaneously, the bitter charges of the Confederate, the 
pounding of the table, the dancing of the glasses, told the 
Englishman that the bloody chasm had not been entirely 
filled. With a little variation and with some figurative 
meaning, he might have used the words of lago : ''Friends all 
but now, even now in peace ; and then but now as if some 
planet had outwitted men, tilting at one another's breast in 
opposition. I cannot speak any beginning to this peevish 
odds." 

But the question which disturbed the New York dinner 
party is a delight to the historian. Feeling that history may 
be known best when there are most documents, he may de- 
rive the greatest pleasure from a perusal of the mass of evi- 
dence bearing on this disputed point ; and if he is of Northern 
birth he ought to approach the subject with absolute can- 
dor. Of a Southerner who had himself lost property or 

301 



302 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

whose parents had lost property, through Sherman's cam- 
paign of invasion, it would be asking too much to expect 
him to consider this subject in a judicial spirit. Even Trent, 
a moderate and impartial Southern writer whose tone is a 
lesson to us all, when referring, in his life of Wilham Gilmore 
Simms, to "the much vexed question, Who burned Colum- 
bia," used words of the sternest condemnation. 

Sherman, with his army of 60,000, left Savannah February 
1, 1865, and reached the neighborhood of Columbia February 
16. The next day Columbia was evacuated by the Confed- 
erates, occupied by troops of the fifteenth corps of the Fed- 
eral army, and by the morning of the 18th either three 
fifths or two thirds of the town lay in ashes. The facts 
contained in these two sentences are almost the only ones 
undisputed. We shall consider this episode most curiously 
if we take first Sherman's account, then Wade Hampton's, 
ending with what I conceive to be a true relation. 

The city was surrendered by the mayor and three alder- 
men to Colonel George A. Stone at the head of his brigade. 
Soon afterwards Sherman and Howard, the commander of 
the right wing of the army, rode into the city ; they observed 
piles of cotton burning, and Union soldiers and citizens work- 
ing to extinguish the fire, which was partially subdued. 
Let Sherman speak for himself in the first account that he 
wrote, which was his report of April 4, 1865: ''Before one 
single public building had been fired by order, the smoul- 
dering fires [cotton] set by Hampton's order were rekindled 
by the wind, and communicated to the buildings around. 
[Wade Hampton commanded the Confederate cavalry.] 
About dark they began to spread, and got beyond the 
control of the brigade on duty within the city. The whole 
of Woods' division was brought in, but it was found im- 
possible to check the flames, which, by midnight, had be- 



WHO BURNED COLUMBIA? 303 

come unmanageable, and raged until about 4 a.m., when the 
wind subsiding, they were got under control. 

''I was up nearly all night, and saw Generals Howard, 
Logan, Woods, and others, laboring to save houses and pro- 
tect families thus suddenly deprived of shelter, and even of 
bedding and wearing apparel. I disclaim on the part of 
my army any agency in this fire, but, on the contrary, claim 
that we saved what of Columbia remains unconsumed. And 
without hesitation I charge General Wade Hampton with 
having burned his own city of Columbia, not with a mali- 
cious intent or as the manifestation of a silly ' Roman stoi- 
cism,' but from folly, and want of sense, in filling it with 
lint, cotton, and tinder. Our officers and men on duty 
worked well to extinguish the flames ; but others not on 
duty, including the officers who had long been imprisoned 
there, rescued by us, may have assisted in spreading the fire 
after it had once begun, and may have indulged in uncon- 
cealed joy to see the ruin of the capital of South Carolina." 
Howard, in his report, with some modification agrees with 
his chief, and the account in "The March to the Sea" of 
General Cox, whose experience and training fitted him well 
to weigh the evidence, gives at least a partial confirmation 
to Sherman's theory of the origin of the fire. 

I have not, however, discovered sufficient evidence to 
support the assertion of Sherman that Wade Hampton 
ordered the cotton in the streets of Columbia to be burned. 
Nor do I believe Sherman knew a single fact on which he 
might base so positive a statement.^ It had generally been 
the custom for the Confederates in their retreat to burn 



* In a letter presented to the Senate of the United States (some while 
before April 21, 1866) Sherman said, " I saw in your Columbia newspaper the 
printed order of General Wade Hampton that on the approach of the Yankee 
army all the cotton should be burned " {South. Hist. Soc. Papers, VII, 156). 



304 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

cotton to prevent its falling into the hands of the invading 
army, and because such was the general rule Sherman 
assumed that it had been applied in this particular case. This 
assumption suited his interest, as he sought a victim to whom 
he might charge the burning of Columbia. His statement 
in his ''Memoirs," published in 1875, is a dehcious bit of his- 
torical naivete. ''In my official report of this conflagra- 
tion," he wrote, "I distinctly charged it to General Wade 
Hampton, and confess I did so pointedly, to shake the faith 
of his people in him, for he was in my opinion boastful and 
professed to be the special champion of South Carolina." 

Instead of Hampton giving an order to burn the cotton, 
I am satisfied that he urged Beauregard, the general in com- 
mand, to issue an order that this cotton should not be burned, 
lest the fire might spread to the shops and houses, which for 
the most part were built of wood, and I am further satisfied 
that such an order was given. Unfortunately the evidence 
for this is not contemporary. No such order is printed in the 
"Official Records," and I am advised from the War Depart- 
ment that no such order has been found. The nearest evi- 
dence to the time which I have discovered is a letter of 
Wade Hampton of April 21, 1866, and one of Beauregard 
of May 2, 1866. Since these dates, there is an abundance 
of evidence, some of it sworn testimony, and while it is mixed 
up with inaccurate statements on another point, and all of it 
is of the nature of recollections, I cannot resist the conclu- 
sion that Beauregard and Hampton gave such an order. 
It was unquestionably the wise thing to do. There was ab- 
solutely no object in burning the cotton, as the Federal 
troops could not carry it with them and could not ship it to 
any seaport which was under Union control. 

An order of Beauregard issued two days after the burning of 
Columbia and printed in the "Official Records" shows that 



WHO BURNED COLUMBIA? 305 

the policy of burning cotton to keep it out of the hands of 
Sherman's army had been abandoned. Sherman's charge, 
then, that Wade Hampton burned Columbia, falls to the 
ground. The other part of his account, in which he main- 
tained that the fire spread to the buildings from the smol- 
dering cotton rekindled by the wind, which was blowing a 
gale, deserves more respect. His report saying that he 
saw cotton afire in the streets was written April 4, 1865, 
and Howard's in which the same fact is stated was written 
April 1, very soon after the event, when their recollection 
would be fresh. All of the Southern evidence (except one 
statement, the most important of all) is to the effect that 
no cotton was burning until after the Federal troops 
entered the city. Many Southerners in their testimony 
before the British and American mixed commission under 
examination and cross-examination swear to this; and 
Wade Hampton swears that he was one of the last Confed- 
erates to leave the city, and that, when he left, no cotton 
was afire, and he knew that it was not fired by his men. 
But this testimony was taken in 1872 and 1873, and may be 
balanced by the sworn testimony of Sherman, Howard, and 
other Union officers before the same commission in 1872. 

The weight of the evidence already referred to would 
seem to me to show that cotton was afire w^hen the Federal 
troops entered Columbia, but a contemporary statement of 
a Confederate officer puts it beyond doubt. Major Cham- 
bliss, who was endeavoring to secure the means of transpor- 
tation for the Confederate ordnance and ordnance stores, 
wrote, in a letter of February 20, that at three o'clock on 
the morning of February 17, which was a number of hours 
before the Union soldiers entered Columbia, 'Hhe city was 
illuminated with burning cotton." But it does not follow 
that the burning cotton in the streets of Columbia was the 



306 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

cause of the fire which destroyed the city. When we come 
to the probably correct account of the incident, we shall see 
that the preponderance of the evidence points to another 
cause. 

February 27, ten days after the fire, Wade Hampton, in a 
letter to Sherman, charged him with having permitted the 
burning of Columbia, if he did not order it directly ; and this 
has been iterated later by many Southern writers. The 
correspondence between Halleck and Sherman is cited to 
show premeditation on the part of the general. "Should 
you capture Charleston," wrote Halleck, December 18, 18G4, 
''I hope that by some accident the place may be destroyed, 
and if a little salt should be sown upon the site it may pre- 
vent the growth of future crops of nullification and secession." 
Sherman thus replied six days later: ''I will bear in mind 
your hint as to Charleston, and don't think salt will be 
necessary. When I move, the Fifteenth Corps will be on the 
right of the Right Wing, and their position will bring them 
naturally into Charleston first ; and if you have watched the 
history of that corps you will have remarked that they gen- 
erally do their work up pretty well. The truth is, the whole 
army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance 
on South Carolina. I almost tremble at her fate, but feel 
that she deserves all that seems in store for her. ... I 
look upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston." 

The evidence from many points of view corroborating 
this statement of the feeling of the army towards South 
Carolina is ample. The rank and file of Sherman's army 
were men of some education and intelligence ; they were 
accustomed to discuss public matters, weigh reasons, and 
draw conclusions. They thought that South Carolina had 
brought on the Civil War, was responsible for the cost and 
bloodshed of it, and no punishment for her could be too se- 



WHO BURNED COLUMBIA? 307 

vere. That was likewise the sentiment of the officers. A char- 
acteristic expression of the feehng may be found in a home 
letter of Colonel Charles F. Morse, of the second Massachu- 
setts, who speaks of the '^miserable, rebellious State of South 
Carolina." ''Pity for these inhabitants," he further writes, 
''I have none. In the first place, they are rebels, and I am 
almost prepared to agree with Sherman that a rebel has no 
rights, not even the right to live except by our permission." 

It is no wonder, then, that Southern writers, smarting at 
the loss caused by Sherman's campaign of invasion, should 
believe that Sherman connived at the destruction of Colum- 
bia. But they are wrong in that belief. The general's 
actions were not so bad as his words. Before his troops 
made their entrance he issued this order: '' General Howard 
will . . . occupy Columbia, destroy the public buildings, 
railroad property, manufacturing and machine shops, but 
will spare libraries and asylums and private dwellings." 
That Sherman was entirely sincere when he gave this order, 
and that his general officers endeavored to carry it out can- 
not be questioned. A statement which he made under oath 
in 1872 indicates that he did not connive at the destruction 
of Columbia. ''If I had made up my mind to burn Colum- 
bia," he declared, "I would have burnt it with no more feel- 
ing than I would a common prairie dog village ; but I did 
not do it." 

Other words of his exhibit without disguise his feelings 
in regard to the occurrence which the South has regarded as 
a piece of wanton mischief. "The ulterior and strategic 
advantages of the occupation of Columbia are seen now 
clearly by the result," said Sherman under oath. "The 
burning of the private dwellings, though never designed by 
me, was a triffing matter compared with the manifold results 
that soon followed. Though I never ordered it and never 



308 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

wished it, I have never shed many tears over the event, 
because I believe it hastened what we all fought for, the end 
of the war." It is true that he feared previous to their entry 
the burning of Columbia by his soldiers, owing to their 
''deep-seated feeling of hostility" to the town, but no gen- 
eral of such an army during such a campaign of invasion 
would have refused them the permission to occupy the capi- 
tal city of South Carolina. "I could have had them stay 
in the ranks," he declared, "but I would not have done it 
under the circumstances to save Columbia." 

Historical and legal canons for weighing evidence are not 
the same. It is a satisfaction, however, when after the in- 
vestigation of any case they lead to the same decision. The 
members of the British and American mixed commission 
(an Englishman, an American, and the Italian Minister at 
Washington), having to adjudicate upon claims for ''prop- 
erty alleged to have been destroyed by the burning of 
Columbia, on the allegation that that city was wantonly fired 
by the army of General Sherman, either under his orders 
or with his consent and permission," disallowed all the 
claims, "all the commissioners agreeing." While they were 
not called upon to deliver a formal opinion in the case, 
the American agent was advised "that the commissioners 
were unanimous in the conclusion that the conflagration 
which destroyed Columbia was not to be ascribed to either 
the intention or default of either the Federal or Confederate 
officers." 

To recapitulate, then, what I think I have established: 
Sherman's account and that of the Union writers who follow 
him cannot be accepted as history. Neither is the version 
of Wade Hampton and the Southern writers worthy of 
credence. Let me now give what I am convinced is the 
true relation. My authorities are the contemporary ac- 



WHO BURNED COLUMBIA? 309 

counts of six Federal officers, whose names will appear when 
the evidence is presented in detail; the report of Major 
Chambliss of the Confederate army; ''The Sack and De- 
struction of Columbia," a series of articles in the Columbia 
Phoenix, written by William Gilmore Simms and printed a 
little over a month after the event; and a letter written 
from Charlotte, February 22, to the Richmond Whig, by 
F. G. de F., who remained in Columbia until the day before 
the entrance of the Union troops. 

Two days before the entrance of the Federal troops, 
Columbia was placed under martial law, but this did not 
prevent some riotous conduct after nightfall and a number 
of highway robberies ; stores were also broken into and 
robbed. There was great disorder and confusion in the 
preparations of the inhabitants for flight; it was a frantic 
attempt to get themselves and their portable belongings 
away before the enemy should enter the city. ''A party 
of Wheeler's Cavalry," wrote F. G. de F. to the Richmond 
Whig, ''accompanied by their officers dashed into town 
[February 16], tied their horses, and as systematically as if 
they had been bred to the business, proceeded to break into 
the stores along Main Street and rob them of their contents." 
Early in the morning of the 17th, the South Carolina rail- 
road depot took fire through the reckless operations of a 
band of greedy plunderers, who while engaged in robbing 
"the stores of merchants and planters, trunks of treasure, 
wares and goods of fugitives," sent there awaiting shipment, 
fired, by the careless use of their lights, a train leading to a 
number of kegs of powder; the explosion which followed 
killed many of the thieves and set fire to the building. 
Major Chambliss, who was endeavoring to secure the means 
of transportation for the Confederate ordnance and ord- 
nance stores, wrote: "The straggling cavalry and rabble 



310 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

were stripping the warehouses and railroad depots. The 
city was in the wildest terror." 

When the Union soldiers of Colonel Stone's brigade en- 
tered the city, they were at once supplied by citizens and 
negroes with large quantities of intoxicating liquor, brought 
to them in cups, bottles, demijohns, and buckets. Many 
had been without supper, and all of them without sleep the 
night before, and none had eaten breakfast that morning. 
They were soon drunk, excited, and unmanageable. The 
stragglers and ''bummers," who had increased during the 
march through South Carolina, were now attracted by the 
opportunity for plunder and swelled the crowd. Union 
prisoners of war had escaped from their places of confine- 
ment in the city and suburbs, and joining their comrades were 
eager to avenge their real or fancied injuries. Convicts in the 
jail had in some manner been released. The pillage of shops 
and houses and the robbing of men in the streets began soon 
after the entrance of the army. The officers tried to pre- 
serve discipline. Colonel Stone ordered all the liquor to 
be destroyed, and furnished guards for the private property 
of citizens and for the pubhc buildings; but the extent of 
the disorder and plundering during the day was probably 
not appreciated by Sherman and those high in command. 
Stone was hampered in his efforts to preserve order by the 
smallness of his force for patrol duty and by the drunkenness 
of his men. In fact, the condition of his men was such that 
at eight o'clock in the evening they were relieved from prov- 
ost duty, and a brigade of the same division, who had been 
encamped outside of the city during the day, took their 
place. But the mob of convicts, escaped Union prisoners, 
stragglers and ''bummers," drunken soldiers and negroes. 
Union soldiers who were eager to take vengeance on South 
CaroHna, could not be controlled. The sack of the city 



WHO BURNED COLUMBIA? 311 

went on, and when darkness came, the torch was appHed to 
many houses ; the high wind carried the flames from build- 
ing to building, until the best part of Columbia — a city of 
eight thousand inhabitants — was destroyed. 

Colonel Stone wrote, two days afterwards: ''About eight 
o'clock the city was fired in a number of places by some 
of our escaped prisoners and citizens." ''I am satisfied," 
said General W. B. Woods, commander of the brigade that 
relieved Stone, in his report of March 26, ''by statements 
made to me by respectable citizens of the town, that the 
fire was first set by the negro inhabitants." General C. R. 
Woods, commander of the first division, fifteenth corps, 
wrote, February 21 : "The town was fired in several different 
places by the villains that had that day been improperly 
freed from their confinement in the town prison. The town 
itself was full of drunken negroes and the vilest vagabond 
soldiers, the veriest scum of the entire army being collected 
in the streets." The very night of the conflagration he 
spoke of the efforts "to arrest the countless villains of every 
command that were roaming over the streets." 

General Logan, commander of the fifteenth corps, said, 
in his report of March 31 : "The citizens had so crazed our 
men with liquor that it was almost impossible to control 
them. The scenes in Columbia that night were terrible. 
Some fiend first applied the torch, and the wild flames leaped 
from house to house and street to street, until the lower 
and business part of the city was wrapped in flames. 
Frightened citizens rushed in every direction, and the reel- 
ing incendiaries dashed, torch in hand, from street to street, 
spreading dismay wherever they went." 

"Some escaped prisoners," wrote General Howard, com- 
mander of the right wing, April 1, "convicts from the peni- 
tentiary just broken open, army followers, and drunken 



312 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

soldiers ran through house after house, and were doubtless 
guilty of all manner of villainies, and it is these men that I 
presume set new fires farther and farther to the windward 
in the northern part of the city. Old men, women, and 
children, with everything they could get, were herded to- 
gether in the streets. At some places we found officers and 
kind-hearted soldiers protecting families from the insults 
and roughness of the careless. Meanwhile the flames made 
fearful ravages, and magnificent residences and churches 
were consumed in a very few minutes." All these quo- 
tations are from Federal officers who were witnesses of the 
scene and who wrote their accounts shortly after the event, 
without collusion or dictation. They wrote too before they 
knew that the question, Who burned Columbia? would 
be an irritating one in after years. These accounts are 
therefore the best of evidence. Nor does the acceptance 
of any one of them imply the exclusion of the others. All 
may be believed, leading us to the conclusion that all the 
classes named had a hand in the sack and destruction of 
Columbia. 

When the fire was well under way, Sherman appeared on 
the scene, but gave no orders. Nor was it necessary, for 
Generals Howard, Logan, Woods, and others were laboring 
earnestly to prevent the spread of the conflagration. By 
their efforts and by the change and subsidence of wind, the 
fire in the early morning of February 18 was stayed. Colum- 
bia, wrote General Howard, was little ''except a black- 
ened surface peopled with numerous chimneys and an oc- 
casional house that had been spared as if by a miracle." 
Science, history, and art might mourn at the loss they sus- 
tained in the destruction of the house of Dr. Gibbes, an 
antiquary and naturalist, a scientific acquaintance, if not a 
friend, of Agassiz. His large library, portfolios of fine en- 



WHO BURNED COLUMBIA? 313 

gravings, two hundred paintings, a remarkable cabinet of 
Southern fossils, a collection of sharks' teeth, '^pronounced 
by Agassiz to be the finest in the world," relics of our aborig- 
ines and others from Mexico, ''his collection of historical 
documents, original correspondence of the Revolution, es- 
pecially that of South Carolina," were all burned. 

The story of quelling the disorder is told by General 
Oliver: "February 18, at 4 A.M., the Third Brigade was 
called out to suppress riot ; did so, killing 2 men, wounding 
30 and arresting 370." It is worthy of note that, despite 
the reign of lawlessness during the night, very few, if any, 
outrages were committed on women. 



A NEW ESTIMATE OF CROMWELL 

A paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at the 
January meeting of 1898, and printed in the Atlantic Monthly of 
June, 1898. 



s^ 



A NEW ESTIMATE OF CROMWELL 

The most notable contributions to the historical litera- 
ture of England during the year 1897 are two volumes by 
Samuel R. Gardiner: the Oxford lectures, ''Cromwell's Place 
in History," published in the spring; and the second volume 
of "History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate," which 
appeared in the autumn. These present what is probably 
a new view of Cromwell. 

If one loves a country or an historic epoch, it is natural 
for the mind to seek a hero to represent it. We are fortu- 
nate in having Washington and Lincoln, whose characters 
and whose lives sum up well the periods in which they were 
our benefactors. But if we look upon our history as being 
the continuation of a branch of that of England, who is the 
political hero in the nation from which we sprang who rep- 
resents a great principle or idea that we love to cherish? 
Hampden might answer if only we knew more about him. 
It occurs to me that Gray, in his poem which is read and 
conned from boyhood to old age, has done more than any 
one else to spread abroad the fame of Hampden. Included 
in the same stanza with Milton and with Cromwell, he seems 
to the mere reader of the poem to occupy the same place in 
history. In truth, however, as Mr. Gardiner writes, "it is 
remarkable how little can be discovered about Hampden. 
AH that is known is to his credit, but his greatness appears 
from the impression he created upon others more than from 
the circumstances of his own life as they have been handed 
down to us." 

317 



318 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

The minds of American boys educated under Puritan 
influences before and during the war of secession accordingly 
turned to Cromwell. Had our Puritan ancestors remained 
at home till the civil war in England, they would have fought 
under the great Oliver, and it is natural that their descend- 
ants should venerate him. All young men of the period 
of which I am speaking, who were interested in history, 
read Macaulay, the first volume of whose history appeared 
in 1848, and they found in Cromwell a hero to their liking. 
Carlyle's Cromwell was published three years before, and 
those who could digest stronger food found the great man 
therein portrayed a chosen one of God to lead his people in 
the right path. Everybody echoed the thought of Carlyle 
when he averred that ten years more of Oliver Cromwell's 
life would have given another history to all the centuries of 
England. 

In these two volumes Gardiner presents a different con- 
ception of Cromwell from that of Carlyle and Macaulay, 
and in greater detail. We arrive at Gardiner's notion 
by degrees, being prepared by the reversal of some of 
our pretty well established opinions about the Puritans. 
Macaulay's epigrammatic sentence touching their attitude 
towards amusements undoubtedly colored the opinions of 
men for at least a generation. ''The Puritan hated bear- 
baiting," he says, ''not because it gave pain to the bear, but 
because it gave pleasure to the spectators." How coolly 
Gardiner disposes of this well-turned rhetorical phrase: 
"The order for the complete suppression of bear-baiting 
and bull-baiting at Southwark and elsewhere was grounded, 
not, as has been often repeated, on Puritan aversion to 
amusements giving 'pleasure to the spectators,' but upon 
Puritan disgust at the immorality which these exhibitions 
fostered." Again he writes: "Zealous as were the leaders 



A NEW ESTIMATE OF CROMWELL 319 

of the Commonwealth in the suppression of vice, they dis- 
played but little of that sour austerity with which they have 
frequently been credited. On his way to Dunbar, Crom- 
well laughed heartily at the sight of one soldier overturning 
a full cream tub and slamming it down on the head of an- 
other, whilst on his return from Worcester he spent a day 
hawking in the fields near Aylesbury. 'Oliver,' we hear, 
'loved an innocent jest.' Music and song were cultivated 
in his family. If the graver Puritans did not admit what has 
been called 'promiscuous dancing' into their households, 
they made no attempt to prohibit it elsewhere." In the 
spring of 1651 appeared the "English Dancing Master," con- 
taining rules for country dances, and the tunes by which 
they were to be accompanied. 

Macaulay's description of Cromwell's army has so per- 
vaded our literature as to be accepted as historic truth; 
and J. R. Green, acute as he was, seems, consciously or 
unconsciously, to have been affected by it, which is not a 
matter of wonderment, indeed, for such is its rhetorical 
force that it leaves an impression hard to be obliterated. 
Macaulay writes: "That which chiefly distinguished the 
army of Cromwell from other armies was the austere morality 
and the fear of God which pervaded all ranks. It is acknow^l- 
edged by the most zealous Royalists that in that singular 
camp no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was 
seen, and that during the long dominion of the soldiery the 
property of the peaceable citizen and the honor of woman 
were held sacred. If outrages were committed, they were 
outrages of a very different kind from those of which a 
victorious army is generally guilty. No servant girl com- 
plained of the rough gallantry of the redcoats ; not an ounce 
of plate was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths; but 
a Pelagian sermon, or a window on which the Virgin and 



320 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

Child were painted, produced in the Puritan ranks an ex- 
citement which it required the utmost exertions of the offi- 
cers to quell. One of Cromwell's chief difficulties was to 
restrain his musketeers and dragoons from invading by 
main force the pulpits of ministers whose discourses, to use 
the language of that time, were not savory." 

What a different impression we get from Gardiner ! 
''Much that has been said of Cromwell's army has no evi- 
dence behind it," he declares. ''The majority of the sol- 
diers were pressed men, selected because they had strong 
bodies, and not because of their religion. The remainder 
were taken out of the armies already in existence. . . . The 
distinctive feature of the army was its officers. All existing 
commands having been vacated, men of a distinctly Puritan 
and for the most part of an Independent type were appointed 
to their places. . . . The strictest discipline was enforced, 
and the soldiers, whether Puritan or not, were thus brought 
firmly under the control of officers bent upon the one object 
of defeating the king." 

To those who have regarded the men who governed Eng- 
land, from the time the Long Parliament became supreme 
to the death of Cromwell, as saints in conduct as well as in 
name, Mr. Gardiner's facts about the members of the rump 
of the Long Parhament will be an awakening. "It was 
notorious," he records, "that many members who entered 
the House poor were now rolling in wealth." From Gar- 
diner's references and quotations, it is not a strained in- 
ference that in subjection to lobbying, in log-rolHng and cor- 
ruption, this Parliament would hardly be surpassed by a 
corrupt American legislature. As to personal morality, he 
by implication confirms the truth of Cromwell's bitter speech 
on the memorable day when he forced the dissolution of 
the Long Parhament. "Some of you," he said, "are whore- 



A NEW ESTIMATE OF CROMWELL 321 

masters. Others," he continued, pointing to one and an- 
other with his hands, '^are drunkards, and some corrupt 
and unjust men, and scandalous to the profession of the 
gospel. It is not fit that you should sit as a Parliament any- 
longer." 

While I am well aware that to him, who makes but a casual 
study of any historic period, matters will appear fresh that 
to the master of it are well-worn inferences and generaliza- 
tions, and while therefore I can pretend to offer only a 
shallow experience, I confess that on the points to which I 
have referred I received new light, and it prepared me for 
the overturning of the view of Cromwell which I had derived 
from the Puritanical instruction of my early days and from 
Macaulay. 

In his foreign policy Cromwell was irresolute, vacillating 
and tricky. ''A study of the foreign policy of the Protec- 
torate," writes Mr. Gardiner, '^ reveals a distracting maze of 
fluctuations. Oliver is seen alternately courting France 
and Spain, constant only in inconstancy." 

Cromwell lacked constructive statesmanship. '^The 
tragedy of his career lies in the inevitable result that his 
efforts to establish religion and morality melted away as 
the morning mist, whilst his abiding influence was built upon 
the vigor with which he promoted the material aims of his 
countrymen." In another place Mr. Gardiner says : '^Crom- 
well's negative work lasted; his positive work vanished 
away. His constitutions perished with him, his Protec- 
torate descended from the proud position to which he had 
raised it, his peace with the Dutch Republic was followed 
by two wars with the United Provinces, his alliance with 
the French monarchy only led to a succession of wars with 
France lasting into the nineteenth century. All that lasted 
was the support given by him to maritime enterprise, and 



322 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

in that he followed the tradition of the governments pre- 
ceding hinu" 

What is Cromwell's place in history? Thus Mr. Gardiner 
answers the question: *'He stands forth as the typical Eng- 
lishman of the modern world. ... It is in England that 
his fame has grown up since the publication of Carlyle's 
monumental work, and it is as an Englishman that he must 
be judged, . . . With Cromwell's memory it has fared as 
with ourselves. Royalists painted him as a devil. Carlyle 
painted him] as the masterful saint who suited his peculiar 
Valhalla. It is time for us to regard him as he really was, 
with all his physical and moral audacity, with all his ten- 
derness and spiritual yearnings, in the world of action what 
Shakespeare was in the world of thought, the greatest be- 
cause the most typical Englishman of all time. This, in 
the most enduring sense, is Cromwell's place in history." 

The idea most difficult for me to relinquish is that of 
Cromwell as a link in that historic chain which led to the 
Revolution of 1688, with its blessed combination of liberty 
and order. I have loved to think, as Carlyle expressed it: 
'' 'Their works follow them,' as I think this Oliver Crom- 
well's works have done and are still doing ! We have had 
our 'Revolution of '88' officially called 'glorious,' and other 
Revolutions not yet called glorious ; and somewhat has been 
gained for poor mankind. Men's ears are not now slit off 
by rash Officiality. Officiality will for long henceforth 
be more cautious about men's ears. The tyrannous star 
chambers, branding irons, chimerical kings and surplices at 
Allhallowtide, they are gone or with immense velocity go- 
ing. Oliver's works do follow him!" 

In these two volumes of Gardiner it is not from what is 
said, but from what is omitted, that one may deduce the 
author's opinion that Cromwell's career as Protector con- 



A NEW ESTIMATE OF CROMWELL 323 

tributed in no wise to the Revolution of 1688. But touching 
this matter he has thus written to me: ''I am incHned to 
question your view that Cromwell paved the way for the 
Revolution of 1688, except so far as his victories and the 
King's execution frightened off James II. Pym and Hamp- 
den did pave the way, but Cromwell's work took other lines. 
The Instrument of Government was framed on quite dif- 
ferent principles, and the extension of the suffrage and re- 
formed franchise found no place in England until 1832. 
It was not Cromwell's fault that it was so." 

If I relinquish this one of my old historic notions, I feel 
that I must do it for the reason that Lord Auckland agreed 
with Macaulay after reading the first volume of his history. 
'^I had also hated Cromwell more than I now do," he said; 
'^ for I always agree with Tom Macaulay ; and it saves trouble 
to agree with him at once, because he is sure to make you 
do so at last." 

I asked Professor Edward Channing of Harvard College, 
who teaches English History of the Tudor and Stuart periods, 
his opinion of Gardiner. ''I firmly believe," he told me, 
''that Mr. Gardiner is the greatest English historical writer 
who has appeared since Gibbon. He has the instinct of 
the truth-seeker as no other English student I know of has 
shown it since the end of the last century." 

General J. D. Cox, a statesman and a lawyer, a student of 
history and of law, writes to me: ''In reading Gardiner, I 
feel that I am sitting at the feet of an historical chief justice, 
a sort of John Marshall in his genius for putting the final 
results of learning in the garb of simple common sense." 



INDEX 



Adams, C. F., and E. G. Bourne, 200. 

Adams, J. Q., as President, 207, 209. 

Adams, John, as President, 207. 

Adelaide, Australia, Froude's descrip- 
tion, 42. 

Alabama claims, arbitration, 218. 

Alexander Severus, homage to history, 4. 

Alison, Sir Archibald, present-day repu- 
tation, 40. 

Allison, W. B., and Hayes's New York 
Custom-house appointments, 255; and 
Silver Bill of 1878, 260. 

American historians, European recog- 
nition, 103. 

American Historical Association, au- 
thor's addresses before, 1 n., 25, 81 ; 
interest of E. G. Bourne, 196. 

American history, qualities, 4, 20-23; 
newspapers as sources, 29-32, 85-95; 
and early English history, 170. See 
also Elections, History, Presidential, 
United States, and periods by name. 

American Revolution, Gibbon on, 113. 

Amyot, Jacques, on Alexander Severus, 
4. 

Ancient history, monopoly of German 
historians, 75. See also Ferrero, 
Gibbon, Herodotus, Tacitus, Thu- 
cydides. 

Annexations, Philippines, 195, 233, 234, 
286; constitutional control, Louisi- 
ana, 208, 211; and slavery, Texas 
and California, 212. 

Arbitrary arrests during Civil War, 214, 
215. 

Arbitration, Alabama claims, 218; Cleve- 
land and Venezuela, 225, 285; Eng- 
lish draft general treaty, 226. 

Army, Federal, and suppression of riot- 
ing, 225, 253 ; character of Cromwell's, 
319, 320. 

Arnold, Matthew, on Americans, 21 ; on 
Sainte-Beuve, 73; on criticism, 292. 

Arthur, C. A., as President, 222; re- 
moval by Hayes, 255. 

Auckland, Lord, on agreeing with 
Macaulay, 323. 

Aulard, F. A., on Taine, 83. 



Bagehot, Walter, on presidential office, 
204, 217. 

Baltimore, railroad riot of 1877, 252. 

Balzac, Honors de, importance to his- 
torians, 50, 73. 

Bancroft, George, use of foot-notes, 33 ; 
remuneration, 78; T. W. Higginson 
on, over-fondness for manuscript 
sources, inaccuracy of quotations, 294. 

Beauregard, P. G. T., and burning of 
Columbia, 304. 

Bemis, George, and Lecky, 157. 

Bigelow, John, as journalist, 90; on 
importance of Godkin to The Nation, 
275. 

Bismarck, Fiirst von, on power of press, 
89. 

Blaine, J. G., value of "Twenty Years," 
33; on power of Congress over Presi- 
dent, 216; on Hayes and Packard, 
248. 

Boer War, Godkin on, 290. 

Boston, H. G. Wells's criticism con- 
sidered, 138. 

Boston Athenaeum, editions of Gibbon 
in, 138. 

Bourne, E. G., and preparation of au- 
thor's history, as critic, 85, 86, 197- 
199; essay on, 191-200; malady, 191, 
192; physique, 191 ; death, 192; educa- 
tion, 192; works, 193-195; professor- 
ships, 193; on Marcus Whitman, 193; 
on Columbus, 194, 195; on Philip- 
pines and Monroe Doctrine, 195; un- 
finished biography of Motley, 196; 
critical notices, 196, 197; thorough- 
ness, 196; interest in American His- 
torical Association, 196; desultory 
reading, 199; and editorship of pub- 
lications of Massachusetts Historical 
Society, 199. 

Bowles, Samuel, as journalist, 90. 

Brown, John, Pottawatomie Massacre 
and election of 1856, 88. 

Browning, Oscar, onCarlyle, 41. 

Brimetifere, Ferdinand, on French lit- 
erary masters, 73. 

Bryan, W. J., campaign of 1896, 228, 286. 



326 



326 



INDEX 



Bryant, W. C, as journalist, 90; and 
Greeley, 269. 

Bryce, James, importance of "Holy 
Roman Empire," 60, 61 ; on Federal 
Constitution, 203; on presidential 
office, 204, 205, 235, 240; on Godkin 
and The Nation, 276, 286, 295; on 
Herbert Spencer, 293. 

Buchanan, James, as President, 213. 

Buckle, H. T., enthusia.sm, 3S; influence 
on Lecky, 154. 

Burt, S. W., appointment by Hayes, 255. 

Bury, J. B., edition of Gibbon, 61 ; on 
Gibbon, 109, 110. 

Butler, Joseph, influence on Lecky, 154. 

Cabinet, Grant's, 186, 278; character of 
Jackson's, 210; Pierce and Buchanan 
controlled bj', 213; Hayes's, 221, 
246-248, 262. 

Cabot, Charles, gift to Boston Athe- 
naeum, 138. 

Calhoun, J. C, and annexation of Texas, 
211. 

Carljde, Thomas, as historian, 38, 41 ; 
and mathematics, 56, 57; importance 
in training of historians, "French 
Revolution" and "Frederick," 62- 
64; biography, 64; self-education, 
65; lack of practical experience, 66; 
on historical method, 77; on Gibbon, 
115; on Cromwell, inaccuracy of 
quotations, 144, 318, 321; on pe- 
cuniary rewards of literary men, 146; 
Gladstone on, 155. 

Chamberlain, D. H., contested election, 
248. 

Chamberlain, Joseph, on newspapers 
and public opinion, 31 ; Godkin on, 
290. 

Chambliss, N. R., on burning of Colum- 
bia, 305, 309. 

Channing, Edward, on Gardiner, 323. 

Charleston, secession movement, 91 ; 
feeling of Union army towards, 306. 

Charleston Courier, and secession move- 
ment, 92. 

Charleston Mercury, and secession move- 
ment, 92. 

Chatham, Earl of, on Thucydides, 15. 

Choate, Rufus, and Whig nominations 
in 1852, 87. 

Christianitv, Gibbon on early church, 
131-133." 

Cicero, homage to history, 4; impor- 
tance to historians, 51 ; Gibbon on, 
120; contradictions, 290. 



Civil service, J. D. Cox and reform, 186; 
spoils system, 209, 211; need of spe- 
cial training ignored, 210; reform 
under Hayes, 221, 254-257; Reform 
Bill, 222; Cleveland and reform, 223, 
224; demand on Pre.sident's time 
of appointments, number of presiden- 
tial offices, 236; Godkin and reform, 
280. 

Civil War, newspapers as historical 
source on, 32, 92-94 ; value of Official 
Records, 92; attitude of Lecky, 157; 
presidential office during, arbitrary 
actions, 213-216; Godkin as corre- 
spondent during, 273; burning of 
Columbia, 301-313. 

Cleveland, Grover, as President, 223- 
226; and civil service reform, 223; 
soundness on finances, 225; and rail- 
road riots, 225; foreign policy, 225; 
and disorganization of Democracy, 
226; and public opinion, 231; as a 
prime minister, 241, 263; and Hayes, 
attends funeral of Hayes, 263; at- 
titude of Godkin, 285. 

Columbia, S. C, burning of, 301-313; 
Sherman's and Hampton's accounts 
discredited, 301-308; feeling of Union 
army towards, 306-308; Sherman's 
orders on occupation, 307; verdict of 
mixed commission on, 308; mob 
responsibility, 308-313. 

Columbia University, lecture by author 
at, 47. 

Commonwealth of England. See Crom- 
well. 

Comte, Auguste, influence, 73. 

Conciseness in history, 11, 14, 16, 20, 36. 

Congress, control of Senate over Pierce 
and Buchanan, 213; power during 
Johnson's administration, 216; over- 
sliadows President, power of Speaker 
of House, 227; McKinley's control 
over, 234; contact with President, 
237; and Hayes, 249, 256, 257, 261. 

Conkling, Roscoe, contest with Hayes 
over New York Custom-house, 255. 

Constitution. See Federal Constitu- 
tion. 

Copvright, The Nation and international, 
282. 

Cornell, A. B., removal by Hayes, 255. 

Corruption, Gibbon on, 127. 

Cox, J. D., on Gardiner, 44, 323; essay 
on, 185-188; varied activities, 185; 
as general, 185; as governor, 185; 
and negro suffrage, 186; as cabinet 



INDEX 



327 



Cox, J. D. — Continued 

officer, ISG; and civil service reform, 
186; in Congress, 186; and Spanisli 
Mission, 186; private positions, 187; 
works, as military historian, 187; 
and Grant, 187; contributions to 
The Nation, 187; as reader, 187; 
character, 188; on Godkin, 295; on 
burning of Columbia, 303. 

Crimean War, Godkin on, 273. 

Cromer, Lord, on power of press, 89, 96. 

Cromwell, Oliver, Carlyle's biography, 
144, 150; Gardiner's influence on 
fame, 150; Gardiner's estimate, 317- 
323; character, 319; character of 
army, 319, 320; foreign policy, 321; 
lack of constructive statesmanship, 
321; as typical Englishman, 322 ; and 
Revolution of 1688, 322, 323. 

Curchod, Suzanne, and Gibbon, 136. 

Curtis, G. W., on The Nation, 270. 

Curtius, Ernst, as historian, 34, 43. 

Dana, C. A., as journalist, historical 
value of articles, 31, 90. 

Darwin, C. R., biography, 59; truthful- 
ness, 145. 

Dates in historical work, importance of 
newspapers, 87. 

Democratic party, and Cleveland's ad- 
ministration, 223, 226. 

Demosthenes, and Thucydides, 15. 

Desultory reading in training of his- 
torian, 64, 65, 199. 

Devens, Charles, in Hayes's cabinet, 247. 

Deyverdun, Georges, collaboration with 
Gibbon, 124. 

Dicey, A. V., as contributor to The 
Nation, 282, 294. 

Dictionaries, importance of quotations 
in, 55. 

Dingley Tariff Act, 229. 

Duff, Sir M. E. Grant, on Herodotus, 5. 

Eckermann, J. P., "Conversations with 
Goethe," 70-72. 

Elections, 1852, Whig nominations, 
Scott's stmnping tour, 86, 87; 1856, 
Kansas as issue, 88; 1876, contro- 
versy, and flexibility of Constitution, 
203, 219, 245; 1896, bimetallism as 
issue, 228 ; attitude of Godkin, 286. 

Elizabeth, Froude and Gardiner on, 149; 
and Anglo-Saxon development, 172. 

Emerson, R. W., on originality, 28; on 
mathematics, 57; on philanthropists, 
181 ; on The Nation, 270. 



England, Macaulay's history, 37, 41, 62; 
Gardiner's history, 143-150; Lecky's 
history, 154, 155; Walpole's history, 
161, 163, 164; conditions in 1815, 161; 
Green's history, 171, 172; Alabama 
claims arbitration, 217; Venezuela- 
Guiana boimdary, 225, 285; draft gen- 
eral arbitration treaty, 226; atti- 
tude of Godkin, 272, 284, 290 ; Crom- 
well and the Commonwealth, 317-323. 

Evarts, W. M., Secretary of State, abil- 
ity, 246; social character, 262; pes- 
simism, 288. 

Evening Post, acqmres The Nation, God- 
kin as editor, 274. 

Evolution, and history, 4, 36. 

Executive. See Civil service, Presiden- 
tial office. 

Federal Constitution, English model, 
203; rigidity and flexibility, 203, 216; 
as political tradition, 208. See also 
Presidential office. 

Ferrero, Guglielmo, as historian, 75; on 
Cicero's contradictions, 290. 

Fessenden, W. P., and Whig nomina- 
tions in 1852, 87. 

Fillmore, Martin, as President, 212. 

Finances, greenback craze, 219, 246, 281 ; 
silver agitation of 1878, 221, 259, 260; 
Silver Act of 1890, 224, 227; Cl-eve- 
land's soundness, 225; attitude of 
Republican party on money, 227, 257 ; 
issue in campaign of 1896, 228, 286; 
gold standard, 231 ; depression (1877- 
1878), 251, 258; Hayes's administra- 
tion, 257-260; Sherman's refunding, 
257; resumption of specie payments, 
258, 259 ; The Nation and sound, 280- 
282. 

Fine arts, and training of historian, 59. 

Firth, C. H., to continue Gardiner's 
history, 148. 

Fish, Hamilton, and arbitration of Ala- 
bama claims, 218. 

Fiske, John, anecdote of the Websters, 
54; as popular scientist, 58; power 
of concentration, 69. 

Footnotes, use in histories, 33. 

Ford, P. L., on writing criticisms for 
The Nation, 292. 

Foreign relations, under Washington, 
206; under Tyler and Polk, 211 ; un- 
der Grant, 218; under Cleveland, 225, 
285; under McKinley, 231-234. See 
also Monroe Doctrine. 

Fourth estate, newspaper as, 96. 



328 



INDEX 



Franklin, battle of, J. D. Cox in, 185. 

Frederick the Great, Carlyle's biography, 
63. 

Frederick III of Germany, "wise em- 
peror," 127. 

Freeman, E. A., on Gibbon, 109. 

French, importance to historians, 49-51 ; 
Gibbon's knowledge, 119, 123. 

French Revolution, Carlyle's history, 62; 
Gibbon and, 113. 

Froude, J. A., on Ulysses, 2; inaccuracy, 
41; biography of Carlyle, 64; on 
Elizabeth, 143, 149. 

Gardiner, S. R., truthfulness, 7, 145; 
as historical model, 42, 45; lack of 
practical experience, 66, 148; method, 
76; essay on, 143-150; death, 143; 
thoroughness of research, 143, 157; 
as linguist, 143; manuscript material, 
143; on Carlyle's "Cromwell," 144; 
writings and editorial work, 144; 
birth, 145; conception of great work, 
145; Irvingite, 146; struggles and 
success, 146, 147; as teacher, 147; 
honors, 147; daj^'s routine, manner of 
composition, 147; style, 148; sound- 
ness and influence of historical esti- 
mates, 149-150; estimate of Crom- 
well, 150, 317-323; on J. R. Green, 
172; on Hampden, 317; on character 
of Puritans, 318; on Cromwell's army, 
320; on character of Rump, 320; 
rank as historian, 323. 

Gardner, Percy, on Herodotus, 5, 40. 

Garfield, J. A., desire for fame, 3; as 
President, 222; as speaker, 241. 

Garrison, W P., as literary editor of The 
Nation, 291-295. 

Generalizations, need of care, 32, 178. 

German, importance to historians, 52. 

German historians, and ancient history, 
75. 

Gibbes, R. W., destruction of collections, 
312. 

Gibbon, Edward, rank and character- 
istics as historian, 5, 10, 109, 114; on 
Tacitus, 10, 116; style, 53, 133; and 
mathematics, 56; importance in 
training of historian, 60; autobiog- 
raphies, 64, 134; essay on, 107-140; 
conception of history, 107; comple- 
tion of it, 108; progress and success 
of work, 108 ; and classic masters, 1 10 ; 
range of work, 110; its endurance, 
110; as possible writer of contem- 
porary history, 111, 112; political 



Gibbon, Edward — Continued 

career. 111; conservatism, 112; and 
American Revolution, 113; historical 
subjects considered by, 115; and 
earlier period of Roman Empire, 116; 
intellectual training, 117-123; love 
of reading, 118; at Oxford, 118; con- 
version and reconversion, 118, 121; 
at Lausanne, 119; self-training, 119, 
122; linguistic knowledge, 119, 120, 
122, 123; influence of Pascal, 119; 
and Voltaire, 121; on Robertson, 122; 
"Essay on Study of Literature," 123; 
service in militia, its influence, 123; 
manuscript history of Switzerland, 
124; begins work on history, 124; 
fame rests on it, 125; Mllman, Guizot, 
and Momm.sen on it, 125; quotations 
from, 126-128; definitions of history, 
126; on religion under Pagan empire, 
126; on happiest period of mankind, 
127; on corruption, 127; on sea-power, 
127; subjection to criticism, 128; 
correctness, 128; truthfulness, 129, 
130; use of conjecture, 129; precision 
and accuracy, 129; treatment of 
early Christian church, 131-133; on 
Julian the Apostate, 132; on Theo- 
dora, licentious passages, 133; com- 
position of history, 134 ; love of books 
and wine, 135; gout, 135; and women, 
love affair, 136-138; history in quarto 
edition, 138; human importance of 
work, 139; satisfaction with career, 
139. 

Gladstone, W. E., on Lecky, Carlyle, 
and Macaulay, 155. 

Gloucester, William Henry, Duke of, 
on Gibbon's history, 138. 

Godkin, E. L., power as journalist, 95; 
essay on, 267-297; rank as journalist, 
267; on Greeley, 267, 268; illustra- 
tion of influence, 208; character, 269; 
indirect influence, character of clien- 
tele, 270, 271 ; authorship of articles 
in The Nation, 271; Essays, 272; 
early life, 272; early optimism and 
later pessimism concerning America, 
272, 284-290, 296; as war corre- 
spondent, 272 ; in America, journey in 
South, 273; correspondent of London 
News, 273 ; foundation of The Nation, 
273; editor of Evening Post, 274; 
retirement, 274; lectures, honors, 
274; and offer of professorship, 274- 
276; nervous .strain, 275; accused 
of censorious criticism, 276; of un- 



INDEX 



329 



Godkin, E. L. — Continued 

fortunate influence on intellectual 
youth, 277 ; influence on author, 278- 
282, 292-294; influence in West, 279; 
disinterestedness, 280 ; and civil ser- 
vice reform, 280; and sound fuiances, 
280-282 ; and tariff, 282 ; and foreign 
affairs, 282 ; other phases of influence, 
282 ; never retracted personal charges, 
282; implacabilitv, ignores death of 
F. A. Walker, 282-284; and Cleve- 
land, 285; and election of 1S9G, 28G; 
and Spanish War and Philippines, 2SG ; 
moral censor, 289; criticism of Eng- 
land, 290; disappointment in democ- 
racy, 291 ; literary criticism in The 
Nation, 291-295; on W. P. Garrison, 
291 ; influence of foreign birth, 295 ; 
fame, 295; lectureship as memorial 
to, 296; farewell words, on general 
progress and political decline, 296, 
297. 

Goethe, J. W. von, on Moliere, 50; on 
linguistic ability, 52; "Faust" and 
study of human character, 68; "Con- 
versations," 70, 72; wide outlook, 
71. 

Gold Standard Act, 231. 

Gordon, C. G., newspapers and Soudan 
expedition, 89. 

Gout, Gibbon on, 135. 

Grant, U. S., first cabinet, 186, 278; 
and Cox, 187; as President, moral 
tone of administration, 217-219, 262; 
on criticism, 218, 239. 

Greek, importance to historians, 51, 
Gibbon's knowledge, 120, 122, 123. 

Greek history. See Herodotus, Thu- 
cydides. 

Greeley, Horace, influence as journalist, 
historical value of articles, 31, 90, 
267; partisanship, 91; character, 
268-270. 

Green, J. R., as historian, 42; ad- 
dress on, 171-173; popularity i^i 
America, 171; on Elizabeth, 172; :u'- 
curacy, 172; character, 172; on Crom- 
well's army, 319. 

Greenbacks. See Finances. 

Grote, George, on Thuc3^dides, 7; on 
references, 33; business training, 78. 

Guizot, F. P. G., on Gibbon's historv, 
125. 

Hadrian, "traveling emperor," 127. 
Halleck, H. W., attitude towards Charles- 
ton, 306. 



Hamilton, Alexander, on presidential 
office, 204, 233, 240; as adviser of 
Washington, 207. 

Hampden, John, as possible Anglo- 
Saxon hero, 317; and Revolution of 
1688, 323. 

Hampton, Wade, and burning of Colum- 
bia, 302-305, 308. 

Harrison, Benjamin, as President, 226; 
as speaker, 241. 

Harrison, Frederic, on Gibbon, 10; on 
Spencer Walpole, 165. 

Harrison, W. H., as President, 211. 

Hart, A. B., on Herodotus, 6. 

Harvard University, addresses of author 
at, 47, 101-103, i05, 243, 265; striving 
after exact knowledge, 101 ; honorary 
degree for Hayes, 251 ; offers profes- 
sorship to Godkin, 274, 275; Godkin 
Lectureship, 296. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, conciseness, 36. 

Hay, John, anecdote of Grant, 218; as 
Secretary of State, 234; on Hayes 
and finances, 260. 

Hayes, Lucy W., as wife of President, 
221, 262. 

Hayes, R. B., election controversy, 203, 
219, 245; administration, 219-222, 
245-264 ; as a prime minister, 241, 263 ; 
righteousness of acceptance of elec- 
tion, 245; difficulty of situation, 245, 
261 ; as governor, 246 ; letter of ac- 
ceptance, 246; inaugural, 246; cab- 
inet, 246-248, 262; withdrawal of 
troops from South, 248, 249; and 
Congress, 249, 256, 257, 261; civil 
service reforms, contest with Conkling, 
250, 254-257; honorary degree from 
Harvard, 251 ; and railroad riots, 253, 
254; and finances, independent think- 
ing, 257-2G0; vetoes of repeal of 
Federal election laws, 260; extra ses- 
sions of Congress, 261 ; serenity, 261 ; 
poi)ular support, 261 ; and election 
of 1880, 2G1; moral tone of adminis- 
tration, 262; and Cleveland, 263. 

Herodotus, on purpose of history, 2; 
rank as historian, 5, 34, 40; as con- 
temporarj' historian, 17. 

Higginson, T. W., on Bancroft, 294. 

Hildreth, Richard, historical value of 
newspaper articles, 31. 

Hill, G. B., on Gibbon's history and 
autobiography, 125. 

Historian, training, 49-79; necessary 
linguistic knowledge, 49-52; acquisi- 
tion of style, 52-55; knowledge of 



330 



INDEX 



Historian — Continued 

mathematics, 55-57 ; of other sciences, 
57-59; of fine arts, 59; general his- 
torical reading, GO-70; mastery of 
Gibbon and Bryce, GO; of Tacitus 
and Thucydides, 61 ; of other his- 
torians, 62-64; knowledge of lives of 
historians, 64; desultory reading, 
64-65; study of human character, 
experimental and through books, 
66-68; thorough reading of char- 
acteristic works, 68; speed and 
retention of reading, 69; importance 
of "Conversations of Goethe," 70-72; 
of Sainte-Beuve's criticisms, 72; 
choice of subject, 74; method, 
originalitj^ 75; note-making, 76; Car- 
lyle on method, 77; remuneration, 
77; and teaching of history, 78; 
and business training, 78. See also 
next two titles. 

Historians, Shakespeare and Homer as, 
1, 2, 7; advantages and disadvantages 
of present-day, 4, 20 ; best, 5, 11; 
Herodotus, 5, 17, 34, 40; Thucvdides, 
6-8, 11-15, 17-19, 35, 61, 110, 111, 
128; Tacitus, 8-10, 15, 17-20, 61, 
110, 111, 116, 128; Gibbon, 10, 60, 
107-140; conciseness, 11, 14, 16, 20, 
36; source material, 12-16, 20, 22; 
contemporaneousness, 17-20; neces- 
sary qualities, 20; monographs, 22; 
patriotism, 22; necessity and kinds of 
originality, 27-29, 75; use of news- 
papers, 29-32, 83-97; generaliza- 
tions, 32, 178; use of footnotes, 33; 
fresh combination of well-known facts, 
34; present-daj' models, 34-43; re- 
flection, 37; enthusiasm, 38; Macau- 
lay, 36-38, 41, 62; Carlyle, 38, 41, 62; 
old and new schools, ethical judg- 
ments, human interest, 39, 43-45 ; 
Hume, Robertson, Alison, 40 ; Froude, 
41; Green, 42, 171-173; Stubbs, 42, 
157; Gardiner, 42, 143-150, 157, 323; 
and popularity, 44 ; growth of candor, 
45; Bryce, 60, 61; use of manuscript 
material, 85, 294; gospel of exact 
knowledge, 101; Lecky, 153-158; 
Spencer Walpole, 161-167; E. L. 
Pierce, 177-181; J. D. Cox, 187; 
E. G. Bourne, 191-200; Bancroft, 
294. See also titles above and 
below. 

History, intellectual rank, 1 ; and poetry, 
1, 2; and physical sciences, 2; defini- 
tions, 2, 6, 43, 126; homage of politi- 



History — Continued 

cians, 3; and evolution, 4, 36; news- 
papers as source, 29-32, 83-97 ; value 
of manuscript sources, 85, 294. See 
also two titles above. 

Hoar, E. R., in Grant's cabinet, 186, 
278; and The Nation, 278. 

Holm, Adolf, on Thucydides, 39; on 
scientific history, 43; as historian, 
75. 

Hoist, H. E. von, use of newspapers, 29, 
85; on westward expansion and slav- 
ery, 212. 

Home rule, Lecky's attitude, 156. 

Homer, as historian, 1, 2, 22; and study 
of human character, 67. 

House of Representatives. See Congress. 

Howard, O. O., at burning of Columbia, 
302, 307, 311, 312. 

Howells, W. D., pessimism, 288. 

Hugo, Victor, influence, 73. 

Hume, David, present-day reputation, 
40, 111; on Gibbon's history of Swit- 
zerland, 124. 

Huxley, T. H., as popular scientist, 58; 
biography, 59; on things useful, 102; 
on college training, 102. 

Income tax decision, Lecky on, 157. 
Ireland, Lecky's history, 155. 

Jackson, Andrew, as President, 209-211 ; 
as leader of democracy, 209; and 
spoils system, 209; and training for 
administrative work, 210; and nulli- 
fication, 210. 

James, Henry, on Sainte-Beuve, 73. 

James, T. L., as postmaster of New York, 
254. 

James, William, on Godkin, 270. 

Jay Treaty, as precedent for treaty- 
making power, 206. 

Jebb, Sir R. C, on Herodotus, 6, 17; on 
Tacitus, 10; on Thucydides, 17. 

Jefferson, Thomas, as President, 207, 
208 ; Louisiana Purchase, 208. 

Johnson, Andrew, as President, 216. 

Johnson, Samuel, on American Revolu- 
tion, 113. 

Johnston, J. E., Hayes desires to ofifer 
cabinet position to, 247. 

Journalists, Godkin, 267-297. See also 
Newspapers. 

Jowett, Benjamin, on Thucydides, 6. 

Julian the Apostate, Gibbon's treat- 
ment, 132. 



INDEX 



331 



Kansas, and election of 1856, 88. 

Kent, James, on danger in presidential 

contests, 219. 
Key, D. M., in Hayes's cabinet, 247. 
Kinglake, A. W., on power of press, 

89. 

Laboulaye, Edouard, on Federal Consti- 
tution, 204. 

Langlois, C. V., on Froude, 41 ; on 
ethical judgments, 43; on note-mak- 
ing, 76. 

Latin, importance to historians, 49, 
51, 54; Gibbon's knowledge, 120, 
123. 

Laud, William, Macaulay and Gardiner 
on, 149. 

Lausanne, Gibbon at, 108, 113, 119, 121 ; 
Voltaire's theatre, 121. 

Lea, H. C, business training, 79; as 
scientific historian, 103. 

Lecky, W. E. H., and Christianity, 131 ; 
essay on, 153-158; precocity, 153; 
value of "Morals," 153; intellectual 
training, 153; as philosophic historian, 
154; "England," 154, 155; on French 
Revolution, 155; on Irish history, 155; 
in politics, 156; popularity of history, 
156; social traits, 156; interest in 
America, 157; historic divination, 
158; "Democracy and Liberty," 158. 

Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, on power 
of press, 96. 

Lincoln, Abraham, as President, 213- 
216; theory and action of war power, 
213; as a precedent, 214; popular 
support, 215; and public opinion, 
231 ; as a prime minister, 241. 

Linguistic ability, importance to his- 
torians, 49-52; Gibbon's, 133; Gar- 
diner's, 143. 

Literary criticism in The Nation, 291- 
295. 

Literary style, acquisition by historian, 
52-55; Macaulay's, 55; Gibbon's, 
133; Gardiner's, 148; Spencer Wal- 
pole's, 165. 

Lodge, H. C, in the House, 227. 

Logan, J. A., at burning of Columbia, 
303, 311, 312. 

London DaUy News, Godkin as American 
correspondent, 273. 

Long Parliament, character of rump, 
320. 

Louisiana, purchase as precedent, 208; 
overthrow of carpet-bag government, 
248, 249. 



Lowell, J. R., on present-day life, 21; 
on Carlyle, 39; on college training, 
102; on Darwin, 145; on Grant's 
cabinet, 186; on The Nation, 268, 271, 
278; on importance of Godkin to it, 
275. 

Macaulay, Lord, on Shakespeare as his- 
torian, 2 ; on Herodotus, 5 ; prolixity, 
11, 16, 36; on Thucydides, 19, 61; 
lack of reflection and digestion, 37; 
enthusiasm, 38 ; as partisan, 41 ; 
and popularity, 44; on Greek and 
Latin, 51 ; style, 55; on mathematics, 
56; importance in training of his- 
torian, 62; biography, 64; as reader, 
69; on Gibbon, 115; on Went worth 
and Laud, 149; Gladstone on, 155; 
on Cromwell, 318; on character of 
Puritans, 318; on Cromwell's army, 
319; Auckland on agreeing with, 323. 

McCrary, G. W., in Hayes's cabinet, 247. 

McKim, J. M., and foundation of The 
Nation, 273, 274. 

McKinley, William, as leader of House, 
227; tariff bill, 227; as President, 
229-234 ; change in tariff views, 229- 
231 ; and gold standard, 231 ; and 
public opinion, Spanish War and 
Philippines, 231-234; diplomacy, 234; 
influence on Congress, 234 ; as speaker, 
241 ; attitude of Godkin, 286. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, on irreligion of 
Gibbon's time, 132. 

Madison, James, as President, 207. 

Mahaffy, J. P., on Herodotus, 5; on 
Thucydides, 8. 

Mahan, A. T., anticipation of theorj% 
127. 

Maine, Sir Henry, on Federal Constitu- 
tion, 203, 206. 

Manuscript sources, value, 85, 91, 294; 
Gardiner's use, 143, 144. 

Massachusetts Historical Society, papers 
by author before, 141, 151, 159, 175, 
183, 189, 315; recognition of Gardi- 
ner, 147; of Lecky, 156; interest of 
E. L. Pierce in, 181; E. G. Bourne 
and editorship of publications, 199. 

Mathematics, and training of historian, 
55-57. 

Matthews, William, on The Nation, 278, 
279. 

Merritt, E. A., appointment by Hayes, 
255. 

Mexican War, aggression, 212; and 
slaver}^, 212. 



332 



INDEX 



Mill, J. S., and mathematics, 56; prod- 

igy, 56. 
Milligan case, and arbitrary government, 

215. 
Milman, H. H., on Gibbon's history, 125, 

139. 
Milton, John, on books, 60. 
Moliere, importance to historians, 49. 
Mommsen, Theodor, on Gibbon, 11, 125; 

as scientific historian, 43. 
Monej'. See Finances. 
Monographs, use by general historians, 

22. 
Monroe, James, as President, 207, 209. 
Monroe Doctrine, and Philippines, 195; 

and development of presidential office, 

209. 
Montesquieu, Gibbon on, 119. 
Morison, J. A. Cotter, on Gibbon, 131. 
Morley, John, on Macaulay, 16, 38, 55; 

on Cicero and Voltaire, 51. 
Morrill, J. S., and Hayes's New York 

Custom-house appointments, 255. 
Morris, Gouverneur, and framing of Con- 
stitution, 204. 
Morse, C. F., on feeling in Union army 

towards South Carolina, 307. 
Motley, J. L., best work, 68; advice to 

historians, 74, 75; and manuscript 

sources, 86, 91 ; Bourne's unfinished 

biography, 196. 

Nation, as historical source, 95; J. D. 
Cox as contributor, 187; circulation, 
270; foundation, 273; weekly edition 
of Evening Post, 274. See also God- 
kin. 

Necker, Mme. See Curchod. 

Negro suffrage, opposition of J. D. Cox, 
186. 

Nerva, as "gray emperor," 127. 

"New English Dictionary," importance 
of quotations in, 55. 

New York Custom-house, Ha3'es's re- 
forms and appointments, 254. 

New York Weekly Tribune, influence, 31, 
90, 91, 267. See also Greeley. 

Newspapers, as historical sources, 29-32, 
83-97 ; use by Von Hoist, 29 ; as regis- 
ters of facts, 30, 86-89 ; importance for 
dates, 30, 87 ; as guide of public opin- 
ion, 31, 89-92; power of Nnr York 
Weekly Trihic7ic, 31, 90, 91,207-209; 
qualities of evidence, 83, 84; value in 
American history, for period 1850- 
1860, 85-92; and correction of logical 
assumptions, 87-89; as record of 



Newspapers — Continued 

speeches and letters, 89 ; value of par- 
tisanship, 91 ; value of Northern, for 
Civil War period, 92, 93; of Southern, 
93; laboriousness of research, 93; 
value for Reconstruction, 94; canons 
of use, 96; as fourth estate, 96; criti- 
cisms of Presidents, 239. See also 
Nation. 

Niebuhr, B. G., on Gibbon, 10, 109; on 
training of historian, 29. 

North, Sir Thomas, translation of Plu- 
tarch, 1. 

Norton, C. E., on Godkin, 270; and 
foundation of The Nation, 273, 274. 

Note-making in historical work, 76. 

Nullification, Jackson's course, 210. 

"Official Records of Union and Con- 
federate armies," value as historical 
source, 92. 

"Ohio idea," 259. 

Oliver, J. M., at burning of Columbia, 
313. 

Olmsted, F. L., Godkin on Southern 
books, 273; interest in The Nation, 
274; on importance of Godkin to it, 
275. 

Olnej^, Richard, draft general arbitration 
treaty, 226. 

Originality in history, 27-29, 34, 75. 

Oxford University, address of author at, 
169. 

Pacific Coast, Goethe's prophecy, 71. 

Packard, S. B., overthrow of govern- 
ment, 248, 249. 

Palmerston, Lord, Spencer Walpole's 
estimate, 164. 

Panama Canal, Goethe's prophecy, 72. 

Paper money. See. Finances. 

Parkman, Francis, originality, 28; best 
work, 68; remuneration, 78; national 
pride in, 102; and religion, 131; on 
The Nation, 270, 295. 

Partisanship, historical value of news- 
paper, 83, 91. 

Pascal, Blaise, influence on Gibbon, 119. 

Pastevir, Louis, biography, 59. 

Patriotism in historians, 22. 

Pericles, funeral oration, 18, 23. 

Philippines, annexation and Monroe 
Doctrine, 195; McKinley's attitude, 
233; Godkin's attitude, 286. 

Physical sciences, and history, 2; and 
training of historian, 55-59. 



INDEX 



333 



Pierce, E. L., essay on, 177-181; bi- 
ography of Siimner, 177-179; as 
politician and citizen, 179, 181; his- 
toric sense, 179; character, 180; in- 
terest in Massachusetts Historical 
Society, 181. 

Pierce, Franklin, as President, 213. 

Pike, J. S., historical value of newspaper 
articles, 31. 

Pittsburg, railroad riot of 1877, 252, 253. 

Pliny the Younger, on Tacitus, 9. 

Plutarch, North's translation, 1 ; on 
Thucydides, 19. 

Poetry, and history, 1. 

Politics, Godkin on decline, 296, 297. 
See also Civil service, Congress, Elec- 
tions, Newspapers, Presidential office, 
and parties by name. 

Polk, J. K., as President, 211. 

Polybius, as historian, 6. 

Popularity, and historical writing, 44. 

Presidential office, essay on, 203-241 ; 
flexibility of powers and duties, 204; 
under Washington, control of treaties, 
205-207 ; John Adams to J. Q. Adams, 
extension of power, 207-209; and 
annexations, 208; and Monroe Doc- 
trine, 209; under Jackson, era of 
vulgarity, spoils system, 209-211; 
Van Buren to Buchanan, annexations 
and slavery, 211-213; period of weak- 
ness, 213; under Lincoln, war power, 
213-216; under Johnson, nadir, 216; 
and cabinet government, 217, 240, 
263; under Grant, 217-219, 262; veto 
power, 219; Kent on dangers in elec- 
tions, 219; contested election of 1876, 
219, 254 ; under Hayes, 220-222, 245- 
264; under Garfield, civil service re- 
form, 222 ; under Arthur, 222 ; under 
Cleveland, advance in power, 223- 
226; under Harrison, 226-228; under 
McKinley, 229-234 ; and public opin- 
ion, 231-234; character of Roosevelt, 
235 ; business, interruptions and their 
remedy, 236-239 ; appointments, num- 
ber of presidential offices, 236; contact 
with Congress, 237; criticisms, 238- 
240; success of system, 240-241. 

Pritchett, H. S., on McKinley and Phil- 
ippines, 233. 

Public opinion, newspapers as guide, 31, 
89-92; backing of Lincoln'.? extra- 
legal actions, 215; influence on Presi- 
dents, 231-234. 

Puritans, Macaulay and Gardiner on 
character, 318. 



Pym, John, and Revolution of 168S, 
323. 

Railroad riots, 1894, Cleveland and use 
of Federal troops, 225; 1877, cause, 
251; strike and conflicts, 253; use 
of Federal troops, 253; .social alarm, 
254; conduct of Hayes, 254. 

Ranke, Leopold von, "England," 143. 

RajTnond, H. J., power as journalist, 90. 

Reading, desultory, 64, 65, 199; facility 
and retention, 69; note-making, 76. 

Reconstruction, newspapers as historical 
source, 94, 95; J. D. Cox's opposition 
to negro suffrage, 186; failure, final 
withdrawal of troops, 248, 249; atti- 
tude of The Nation, 282. 

Reed, T. B., and power of Speaker, 227. 

Reflection in historical work, 37. 

Reform act of 1832, Lord John Russell's 
introduction, 162. 

Religion, Gibbon on, under Pagan em- 
pire, 126; Gibbon's treatment of early 
Christian church, 131-133. 

Republican party, newspapers as record 
of formation, 90; and sound money, 
227, 257. 

Resiunption of specie payments, oppo- 
sition and success, 258, 259. 

Revolution of 1688, question of Crom- 
well's influence, 322, 323. 

Riots. See Railroad. 

Robertson, William, present-day repu- 
tation, 40, 111; Gibbon on, 122. 

Rome. See Gibbon, Tacitus. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, character, 235; 
routine as President, 236, 238. 

Ropes, J. C, as military historian, 13. 

Round Table, character, 279. 

Rousseau, J. J., on Gibbon as lover, 137. 

Russell, Lord John, and Reform Act of 
1832, 162; Spencer Walpole's biog- 
raphy, 162. 

Sainte-Beuve, C. A., style, 53; on desul- 
tory reading, 65; on biographies of 
Goethe, 72; as critic, 72; on Gibbon, 
114, 123; on Tacitus, 128. 

Salisbury, Lord, Godkin on, 290. 

Santa Maria in Ara Creli, Bambino, 107; 
connection with Gibbon, 107. 

Schofield, J. M., on J. D. Cox, 185. 

Schouler, William, power as journalist, 
90. 

Schurz, Carl, on history as profession, 78; 
criticism of Cleveland's Venezuelan 
policy, 239; in Ohio campaign of 



334 



INDEX 



Schurz, Carl — Continued 

1875, 246; Secretarj' of Interior, abil- 
ity, 247 ; with Hayes at Harvard com- 
mencement, 251; and civil service 
reform, 256 ; social character, 262 ; 
as editor of Evening Post, 274; and 
greenback inflation, 281 . 

Scott, Winfield, presidential campaign, 
86, 87. 

Sea-power, Gibbon on, 127. 

Senate. See Congress. 

Seward, W. H., and arbitrary arrests, 
214. 

Shakespeare, William, as historian, I, 7, 
22; conciseness, 36; and study of 
human character, 67. 

Shaw, Bernard, on reality of Shake- 
speare's characters, 67. 

Sheffield, Lord, sends wine to Gibbon, 
135. 

Sherman, John, and Silver Bill of 1878, 
221, 259, 260; on contact of President 
and Congress, 237; in Ohio campaign 
of 1875, 246; Secretary of Treasury, 
ability, 247, 258; refunding, 258; 
abused for depression, specie resump- 
tion, 258, 259; social character, 263; 
and greenback inflation, 281. 

Sherman, W. T., and Hayes's suggestion 
of war portfolio for General Johnston, 
247; and burning of Columbia, 301- 
313. 

Sicilian expedition, Thucydides's ac- 
count, 19, 61. 

Silver. See Finances. 

Slavery, and westward expansion, 212. 

Source material, use by Thucydides and 
Tacitus, 12-16; modern, 20, 22; 
newspapers, 29-32, 83-97; manu- 
script, 85, 91, 143, 294. 

South Carolina, overthrow of carpet-bag 
government, 248; feeling of Union 
army towards, 306. 

Spanish War, newspapers and cause, 89 ; 
McKinley's course, 233; attitude of 
Godkin, 286. 

Speaker of House of Representatives, 
power, 227. 

Spectator, on McKinley's diplomacy, 234. 

Spedding, James, Gardiner on, 145. 

Spencer, Herbert, on aim of education, 
77; on age as factor in evidence, 85; 
Bryce on, 293. 

Spoils system. See Civil service. 

Stael, Madame de, parents, 137; on 
Gibbon, 137 n. 

"Stalwarts," origin of name, 249. 



Stanton, E. M., and arbitrary arrests, 

214. 
Stephens, H. M., on French Revolution, 

155. 
Stone, G. A., at burning of Columbia, 

302, 310, 311. 
Story, Joseph, on presidential character, 

235. 
Stubbs, William, as historian, 42, 69, 157. 
Suffrage, Godkin on universal, 296. See 

also Negro. 
Sumner, Charles, style, 53. 
Switzerland, Gibbon's manuscript his- 

torj% 124. 

Tacitus, rank as historian, 5; char- 
acteristics as historian, 8-10, 128; 
conciseness, 11, 16; use of source 
material, 15; as contemporary his- 
torian, 17, 19, 111; on history, 43; 
importance in training of historian, 61 ; 
Gibbon on, 116; on censure, 276. 

Taine, H. A., use of journals, 83. 

Tariff, Cleveland's attitude, 225; 
McKinley Act, 227; Dingley Act, 229; 
McKinley's change of opinion, 229- 
231 ; The Nation and protection, 282. 

Taylor, Zachary, as President, 212. 

Texan annexation, 211; and slavery, 
212. 

Thackeray, W. M., on Macaulay, 38. 

Theodora, Gibbon's treatment, 133. 

Thompson, R. W., in Haj^es's cabinet, 
247. 

Thucydides, rank as historian, 5; on 
history, 6 ; characteristics as historian, 
6-8, 39, 128; conciseness, 11, 14, 16, 
36; use of personal sources material, 
12-14; as contemporary historian, 
17, 111; importance in training of 
historian, 61. 

Thurman, A. G., and greenback inflation, 
281. 

Ticknor, George, pessimism, 288. 

Tilden, S. J., election controversy, 203, 
219, 245. 

Tocqueville, Alexis de, style, 65; on 
presidential office, 210. 

Trajan, "wise emperor," 127. 

Treaty-making power, Jay Treaty as 
precedent, 206. 

Trent, W. P., on burning of Columbia, 
302. 

Trevelyan, Sir G. O., biography of 
Macaulay, 64. 

Tyler, John, as President, 211, 212. 

Tyndall, John, as popular scientist, 58. 



INDEX 



335 



Ulysses, and study of human character, 
67. 

United States, Goethe's prophecy of west- 
ward extension and Panama Canal, 
71; poHtical traditions, 208; Godkin's 
early optimism and later pessimism 
concerning, 272, 284-290, 296; God- 
kin on general progress and political 
decline, 296. See also American, 
Finances, Newspapers, Politics. 

Universities, strife after exact knowl- 
edge, 101 ; advantages and aim of 
training, 102. 

Vallandigham case, Lincoln's attitude, 
214. 

Van Buren, Martin, as President, 211. 

Venezuela-Guiana boundary, Cleveland's 
action, 225; Godkin's attitude, 285. 

Veto power, wisdom, 219. 

Voltaire, importance to historians, 51 ; 
theatre at Lausanne, 121; and Gib- 
bon, 121. 

Walker, F. A., career, 283; The Nation 
ignores death of, 283, 284. 

Walpole, Sir Spencer, essay on, 161-167; 
"England," 161, 163, 164; biography 
of Lord JohnRussell, 162; knowledgeof 
men, 164; of continental politics, 164; 
"Studies in Biography," 164; knowl- 
edge of practical politics, 165; as 
man of affairs, 165; style, 165; visit 
to, character, 165-167; death, 167. 

War power, exemplification by Lincoln, 
213-216. 

Warner, C. D., on originality in style, 27. 



Washington, George, as President, 205- 

207; prescience, 206; as political 

tradition, 208. 
Webb, J. W., power as journalist, 90. 
Webster, Daniel, basis of style, 53, 54; 

and presidential nomination in 1852, 

86. 
Weed, Thurlow, power as journalist, 90. 
Wells, H. G., on Boston, 138. 
Wentworth, Thomas, Macaulay and 

Gardiner on, 149. 
West Virginia, railroad riots of 1877, 

252. 
Western Reserve University, lecture by 

author at, 47. 
Wheeler, Joseph, lootings by his cavalry 

at Columbia, 309. 
Whig partj^ nominations in 1852, 86. 
Whitman, Marcus, Bourne's essay on, 

193. 
William I of Germany, "gray emperor," 

127. 
William II of Germany, "traveling em- 
peror," 127. 
Windom, William, and Hayes's New 

York Custom-house appointments, 

255. 
Wine, Gibbon's love for, 135. 
Winthrop, R. C, on E. L. Pierce, 179. 
Woods, C. R., at burning of Columbia, 

303, 311, 312. 
Woods, W. B., at burning of Columbia, 

311. 
Woolsey, T. D., on Thucydides, 39. 

Yale University, lecture by author at, 
47. 



This Index was made for me by D. M. Matteson. 



"It is not probable that we shall see a more complete or better-balanced 
history of our great civil war." — The Nation. 

HISTORY OF THE 
UNITED STATES 

FROM THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 

TO 

THE FINAL RESTORATION OF HOME RULE 
IN THE SOUTH IN 1877 

By JAMES FORD RHODES 

Complete in seven octavo volumes, attractively bound in dark blue 
cloth, with gilt tops and lettering 

I The first volume tells the history of the country during the four years' 
iSso-'iSSA futile attempt to avoid conflict by the Compromise Measures of i«50, 

ending with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise m 1654. 

II The second volume deals with the stirring events which followed this 
i8S4-i86o repeal, through all the Kansas and Nebraska struggles, to the triumph 

of the then newly organized Republican party in the election of Lin- 
coln in i860. 

III The third volume states the immediate effect upon the country of Lin- 
1860-1862 coin's election; covers the period of actual secession; the dramatic 

opening of the war; the sobering defeat of Bull Run; Grant's victory at 
Donelson; and closes with the battle of Shiloh and the surrender of 
New Orleans. 

IV The fourth volume follows the progress of the war in vivid discussions 
1862-1864 of campaigns, battles, the patient search for the right commander, and 

the attitude toward this country of the British government and people. 

V The fifth volume opens with the account of Sherman's march to the sea. 
1864-1866 The adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, Lincoln's assassination, 

the state of society in the North and the South during the exhausting 
war, and the first two years of Johnson's administration are fully treated. 
The volume ends with an account of the pohtical campaign of i«66. 

VI The sixth volume deals with the Reconstruction Acts and their execu- 
1866-1872 tion, the impeachment of President Johnson the Ku Klux Klan he 

^ Freedmen's Bureau, the ratification of the XlVth and the passage of the 
XVth amendments, and with foreign and financial affairs. 

VII The seventh volume deals with the Credit Mobilier scandal, the " Salary 
1872-1877 Grab" Act, the financial panic of 1873, the continued Reckons ruction, 

with a summing up. It closes with an account of the presidential cam- 
paign of 1876 and the disputed presidency. 

Frice of the set, $17.50 net Per volume, $2.50 net 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers, 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York 



PRESS COMMENTS ON THE 

History of the United States 

By JAMES FORD RHODES 



By Andrew McLaughlin, in " The American Historical 
Review " 
Vol, I. " Mr. Rhodes has shown unusual skill in handling re- 

dundant or conflicting testimony ; and he has shown him- 
self a historian and not a partisan. . . . He is writing a 
political and social history with rare judgment, accuracy, 
and patience, with good literary skill, and with sincerity 
and honesty of purpose." 

From " The New York Tribune " 

" A work like this, so temperate in thought, so elevated 
in style, so just and reasonable in exposition, so large in 
comprehension of causes and effects, and so tolerant and 
truly catholic in conclusions, could not have been written 
if the momentous period under consideration had not been 
closed. In no other recent contribution to the study of 
American politics is there so true a sense of historical per- 
spective as in these volumes. The field of view is defi- 
nitely outlined so that it is not obscured by haze and mist 
on the outer confines. Within it events, tendencies, legis- 
lation, political administrations, and the men who have 
been making history hand over hand, appear in their 
rightful relations. 
Vol. II, " The picture is perfect in proportion and in composi- 

tion. It is a complete survey of a period that is finished. 
It is a work of great dignity of purpose, and is rich in re- 
sources of learning and political and moral philosophy. 
The st)'le, while less stately and rhetorical than that of 
Bancroft, is direct, trenchant, often epigrammatic, and 
always luminous. Every page bears evidence of pains- 
taking and laborious research. Everj^ chapter has the 
impress of a cultivated, thoroughly equipped mind and of 
a magnanimous, tolerant nature." 

2 



From " The Athenaeum," London 

Vol. II. " Mr. Rhodes not only takes great pains, but he has 

the art of giving pleasing literary expression to his con- 
clusions." 

From " The Spectator," London 

*' Mr. Rhodes's first volume deals mainly with slavery as 
an institution in the Southern States, and the various 
political compromises by which it was sought to prevent 
that institution from becoming the cause — or at least the 
excuse — for disintegration and civil war. In the second 
we seem to drift helplessly toward the conflict. . . . We 
have indicated that one of Mr. Rhodes's chief excellences 
as a literary artist is his power of characterization. This 
is admirably illustrated by his sketches of Charles Sumner 
and John Brown. . . . These volumes are something 
more and better than a gallery of political portraits. But 
the portraits will, from their being so well executed, remain 
longer in the memory than anything else." 

From " The Saturday Review," London 

Vol. III. " Mr. Rhodes is not merely impartial and laborious, 
but he is determined that his research and the judicial 
character of his work shall be patent on the face of his 
writing. He almost always tells us, if not directly, at least 
by implication, the process by which he arrives at his 
conclusions, and the nature of the conflicting views be- 
tween which he strikes a balance. His impartiality, too, 
is really judicial, and never results from missing or under- 
rating the greatness of the issues wherewith he is dealing. 
... It is one of the most readable works on the subject 
which it has been our fortune to meet." 

From " The Daily Chronicle," London 

" Although Mr. Rhodes is long, he is never dull. He 

can tell a story ; he can expound a series of connected 

arguments with great skill ; he can pierce to the heart of 

his subject and reveal the essential purpose of the political 

3 



Vol. III. struggle of the period. He has his convictions, which are 
strong and sound ; but he is never, so far as we have ob- 
served, other than scrupulously fair all round." 

From " The Edinburgh Review," Scotland 

" Mr. Rhodes's work is full, intelligible, and, on the 
whole, impartial. . . . We read his work with increasing 
respect as we proceed. We acknowledge the thoroughness 
with which he has investigated a great historical episode, 
and the impartiality with which he has approached a sub- 
ject which stirred his fellow-countrymen to the very depths 
of their souls." 

From " The Nation," New York 

Vol. IV. " We find ourselves following with unflagging interest 
his strong synthesis of current facts, actions, and opin- 
ions, which make vivid the actual life of the time. We 
breathe the atmosphere of the period itself, and share the 
doubts, the fears, and the deep solicitude of the actors in 
it. . . . The historian so well preserves his own balance 
of judicial calmness, and his full knowledge of all the 
facts which should temper and modify our judgment is so 
well at his command, that we easily yield to his interpre- 
tation of events even against our own predilections. Our 
consciousness of this effect upon ourselves goes far to 
make us believe that here we have something very near to 
what time will prove to be the accepted story of the nation's 
great struggle for self-preservation. . . . The definite 
clearness of judgment and the right-minded fairness of 
criticism shown in each chapter support our earlier judg- 
ment that the whole book will be a trustworthy guide and 
a friendly companion in our study of the time, as indispen- 
sable to those whose canons of political judgments may 
differ from the author's as to those who fully accord with 
him." 

From " The Yale Review " 

" For the conception and execution of the task in this 
spirit, Mr. Rhodes is exceptionally well qualified," 
4 



By W. A. Dunning, in "The American Historical Review" 

Vol. IV. " Mr. Rhodes has now attained that agreeable position 
in which a new volume of his history is distinctly an 
' event.' The position has its responsibilities ; but the 
present volume offers abundant evidence that the author is 
quite capable of sustaining them. In guiding us through 
the central heat of the Civil War, he never loses the clear- 
ness of head and the calmness of spirit with which he 
brought us up to the conflagration." 

By Frederick Bancroft, in " Harper's Weekly " 

" No writer of United States history has ever made 
such thorough use of all the materials and shown such 
industry and good judgment, together with much literary 
skill. . . . He sees with extraordinary clearness the 
leading characteristics of great men. His descriptions 
of the heroes, like Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, 
Lee, and Jackson, are realistic and impressive. . . . He 
shows us the real Abraham Lincoln as no one else has 
ever done. ... It greatly enhances the permanent value 
of this great work, which is sure to remain a standard." 

From " The New York Tribune " 

Vol. V. " Mr. Rhodes is painstaking in research, showing a 

full acquaintance with the sources of accurate knowledge. 
He has capacity for weighing evidence and grasping the 
essential truth of contemporar)^ impressions or reports of 
eye-witnesses, while guarding against insufficient induc- 
tions, balancing them with less vivid official records. He 
has charm and lucidity of style and a rare gift for quota- 
tion, not the trick of essayists who make a pastiche of 
other people's clever sayings, but the faculty of seizing 
the word or phrase from letter, speech, or debate which 
reflects the actual movement of events and makes his 
reader the participant in a living scene. Above all he is 
inflexibly judicious, without causes to plead, friends to 
eulogize, or enemies to condemn, but with one sole aim, 
the truth." 

S 



From " The Speaker," London 
Vol. V. " Masses of records, pamphlets, newspapers, private 

letters, have been ransacked in order to correct the false 
traditions which register contemporary misconceptions 
and hallucinations during times of turmoil and passion. 
The havoc wrought by war among the non-combatants 
has never been described with more convincing fidelity 
than in the painstaking account given by Dr. Rhodes of 
the condition of the South during 1863 and 1864, and 
his rendering of events during the presidency of Andrew 
Johnson is a singularly careful attempt to assist the judg- 
ment of citizens in understanding the most tangled bit of 
modern American history." 

By Wm. Roscoe Thayer, in " The Atlantic Monthly " 

" In selecting and presenting evidence, he is conspicu- 
ously fair ; and his plain style reassures those who fear 
that brilliance means untrustworthiness." 

By Walter L. Fleming, in "The Political Science 
Quarterly " 
" In summing up, it may be said that the history of 
Mr. Rhodes, while as fair and judicial as any American 
can now make it, is distinctly from the Northern stand- 
point ; that there is the intent, usually successful, to meet 
the other side with fairness, though a sympathetic treat- 
ment of both sides is naturally impossible at present. . . . 
As a whole the book is far superior in liberality to any- 
thing that has yet been written." 

" The New York Sun " 

"The volume contains 626 pages, not one of them 
dull or unworthy the critical attention of the student of 
history. The author's grasp of detail is sure, his sense 
of proportion seldom, if ever, at fault ; his judgment of 
the reader's interest in a subject admirable ; and his 
impartiality can never be doubted. His style is ade- 
quate, never lacking in vigor, precision, and color. No 
one need hesitate to hail Mr. Rhodes as one of the great 
American historians." 
6 



" The New York Times " 

Vol. V. " Since Mr. James Ford Rhodes began to publish his 

now famous 'History of the United States from the 
Compromise of 1850,' twelve years have elapsed, years 
filled with events in the art and science of history writing; 
yet nothing has lessened the interest of scholars and the 
general public in this important work. From time to time 
new instalments have been quietly, unostentatiously given 
to the reading world, until now the fifth volume is before 
us. It was a great undertaking — an account of our 
momentous Civil War and its consequences on American 
destiny. The first volume set a hitherto unattained 
standard of judgment, of criticism, of fairness to all 
parties concerned. Not a single chapter nor a single 
paragraph of the four succeeding ones has fallen short 
of the high promise of the first." 

" The Brooklyn Eagle " 
Vol. VI. " Throughout the sixth volume, which covers the first 
administration of Grant, and his reelection in 1872, our 
historian never loses sight of the prominent place which 
the Reconstruction policy holds in the history of the 
period. . . . The judicious and fair-minded way in which 
the whole subject is handled by Mr. Rhodes commands 
the admiration and strengthens the confidence of the 
reader as to the historical value and soundness of his 
conclusions." 

" The South Atlantic Quarterly " 
Vol. VII. " The seventh volume deals in the same vivid fashion 
with the Credit Mobilier and Sanborn Contract scandals, 
the panic of 1873 and the consequent financial legislation, 
culminating in the resumption act of 1875 and the inflation 
act which was vetoed by Grant. The narrative continues 
with accounts of the campaign and the election of 1874, 
with the success of the Democratic party and the struggle 
of the South for good government. ... No better ac- 
count has ever been written in a general way of the 
struggle then going on in the South." 
7 



GENERAL COMMENT 



From "The Herald," Boston, Mass. 

" The work is thoroughly admirable in point of style — clear, concise, 
and really fascinating in its narrative. A more thoroughly readable 
book has seldom been written in any department of literature. . . . 
We commend these volumes to those in search of a war history, as 
much the most readable and interesting, as well as the most genuinely 
instructive, of anything on the subject that has yet appeared. It will 
afford a revival of memories to the older class of readers, and a value 
in instruction to the younger, difficult to be overestimated." 

By Charles Dudley Warner, in " Harper's Magazine " 

" Written with a freshness of style which will appeal even to those 
who are not interested in its subject. Its vivid biographical sketches 
portray the men of whom they treat. It shows no little research, and 
no small amount of literary skill ; it is, above all, honest and impartial." 

From " The English Historical Review " 

" Without a touch of rhetoric he brings out in full force the moral 
and economical evils of slavery as it existed in the South, its baneful 
effect on domestic life, on class relations, on industry. But he never 
fails to distinguish with singular fairness between the evil of a system 
and the moral responsibility of these individuals on whom the main- 
tenance of a system has almost of necessity devolved." 

From " The Nation," New York 

" There is the same abundant and almost exhaustive collation of 
material, the same simplicity and directness of method, the same good 
judgment in the selection of topics for full treatment or for sketchy 
notice, the same calmness of temper and absence of passionate par- 
tisanship. He may fairly be said to be a pupil of the Gardiner school 
and to have made the great English historian a model in subordinat- 
ing the literary element to the judicial, and in compelling his readers 
to accept his guidance as that of a trustworthy pilot through the mazes 
of conflicting evidence and the struggles of opposing principles." 

From " The Plain Dealer," Cleveland 

"In truth, Mr. Rhodes's 'History of the United States' has the 
fascination of a novel, while it has been accepted on both sides of the 
Atlantic as standing in the very front rank of histories of the period 
for its accuracy and sound judgment, as well as its pellucid style." 

8 



From " The Daily News," London 

" His history, the work of an acute thinker and an earnest and 
liberal-minded politician, will doubtless take rank as a standard 
authority on the period with which it deals," 

By Wm. G. Brown, in " The American Historical Review " 

" It is not unreasonable, I think, to claim for the work of this 
American historian an importance not quite equalled by the work of 
any of his contemporaries who are writing history in the same tongue. 
The judgment of competent critics is . . . fairly unanimous, and the 
essence of their consensus is, that Mr. Rhodes tells the truth." 

By John T. Morse, in " The Quarterly Review " 

" Mr, Rhodes's ' History of the United States ' is marked by a tone 
of such judicial fairness towards both men and measures that it 
finds no superior since the days of Thucydides." 

ON THE PUBLICATION OF VOLUMES VI AND VH 



From " The Congregationalist " 

" The difficulty of maintaining a judicial tone in recounting and 
passing judgment upon the events and motives of such recent history 
Mr. Rhodes has well surmounted. His tone is grave and he is 
studious of truth. He has worked through the abundant sources with 
an explorer's enthusiasm and a scholar's caution." 

From " The Outlook " 

" The distinguishing characteristics of this work are noteworthy 
fairness, sound scholarship, and a high degree of narrative skill. 
Looking at it a little more in detail, perhaps the most striking features 
are the ease displayed in controlling the management of the vast 
material utilized and the emphasis placed on dramatis personae. For 
all his leisureliness, it cannot be said — unless in the discussion of 
the attitude taken by England during the war — that Mr. Rhodes 
indulges in undue disquisition or elaboration." 

From " The Brooklyn Eagle " 

" He tells the story so well that the reader never wearies, while the 
narrative is so essentially dramatic in the very nature and quality of 
the facts which make up the story, that its interest never flags for a 
moment. Mr. Rhodes's work will stand as one of the great additions 
to American historical literature. He was fortunate in his choice of a 
subject, he has been singularly able and successful in the way in 
which he has handled his theme." 

9 



From " The London Times " 

" Mr. Rhodes possesses the dramatic instinct in no inconsiderable 
degree, with the faculty to seize on the essential points of interest in 
a narrative, and so to set his scene and group his characters that the 
persons live for us and the incidents stand out clear cut and full of 
movement. In telling the story of a nation composed of a number of 
federated States, the historian is necessarily confronted with one 
inherent difficulty, in that the events in those several States by no 
means always follow the same course, and it often occurs that the 
threads of the same narrative have to be traced separately in each. 
In doing this there is constant danger of losing grip of the unity of 
the narrative as a whole, and of overloading it with detail. With this 
difficulty Mr. Rhodes wrestles with more than usual success." 

From " The Dial " 

" Giving up a promising business career and devoting oneself to the 
writing of history is an occurrence not common in this so-called com- 
mercial age. Such in brief has been the life of Dr. James Ford 
Rhodes, who has devoted nineteen years of the best part of his life to 
a period of our history but little more extended in time. The loss of 
the business world has been one of immense gain to the world of his- 
torical literature. The word 'literature' is used designedly here. 
Possibly Dr. Rhodes 's works may not stand a rigid application of all 
the tests invented by the schoolmen to determine what is literature, 
but they certainly carry the stamp of verisimilitude and have the force 
necessary to lure the reader on and invite him to return." 

From " The World To-Day " 

" The history is one of the distinctly great achievements of the 
historical scholarship of this generation. It is one upon which 
American scholarship may well challenge comparison with the best 
that Europe has recently produced." 

From " The New York Evening Post " 

" Of Mr. Rhodes's success in his published volumes there can be 
only one opinion. He has written a history of an eventful, even 
critical period, that will long remain a standard; and he has to a 
remarkable degree met the principal requirements of modern his- 
torical methods. Great industry in compiling his authorities, marked 
capacity for weighing them, clear arrangement and a balanced judg- 
ment of men and events — such qualities have resulted in a series of 
notable volumes, in a dispassionate tone. Never attempting the florid 
or eloquent, he never falls to the dull or turgid." 



Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in " Life " 

" Mr. Rhodes deals with a momentous period — the years spanned 
by the Compromise of 1850 and the rehabilitation of the South in 1877. 
An attentive reading of his work, now completed by the issue of the 
seventh volume, is a liberal education. Even those of us who were 
actors and observers in 1860-1865 can learn much from these seven 
volumes; those of us who were born after the close of the war can 
learn everything. There is a kind of greatness in the lucid simplicity 
with which Mr. Rhodes has handled his vast and complicated material. 
His impartiality, insight, and authentic knowledge of the events' and 
characters presented on the broad stage of his narrative give his work 
an incomparable and lasting value. The writer brought to his task 
too high a mood for mere partisanship. Here are pages to stir alike 
the Northern and the Southern pulse. I was about to say that his 
history is as absorbing as a play; but I would like to see a play that 
is half so absorbing." 

From " The South Atlantic Quarterly " 

" In his first five volumes Mr. Rhodes set a high standard for him- 
self, viewing his work from whatever standpoint one might. His 
work has become noted for its completeness, accuracy, and im- 
partiality; the latter, too, in treating of a period in relation to which 
impartiahty has been only a rare exception. His treatment has 
always been thoroughly scientific, and at the same time, the result 
has been thoroughly readable, a result, by the way, that has not 
always been attained by the scientific historical writer of latter days. 
The last two volumes do not depart from the high standard set by the 
preceding ones, exacting as that is. They are calm, judicious, and, 
at the same time, sympathetic in their treatment of those vexed and 
stormy years from 1866-1877." 

From " The New York Sun " 

" By deliberate choice Mr. Rhodes is a pupil not of the school of 
Macaulay and Froude, but of the school of Stubbs and Gardiner. 
Gibbon is the only English historian who has succeeded in combining 
extreme accuracy with extreme attractiveness. With the author of 
the work before us attractiveness was only a secondary object; yet 
his pages are neither dull nor dry. Not satisfied with the immense 
labor expended by him in exploring and winnowing a vast mass of 
material, he has striven earnestly and successfully to present his con- 
clusions in a simple, lucid, and engaging way. That is why his book 
is sure to be widely read while his right to a high place among 
authorities will be undisputed." 

II 



